Resurrection men arose to meet the needs of anatomists in 18th- and 19th-century Edinburgh, Scotland. The city was a hub of medical education, and schools required human cadavers to train students and to advance scientific knowledge. If a felon was sentenced to death, a judge could posthumously punish the convict with an ignoble end on a dissection table. During the early 1800s, executed felons represented the bulk of legally obtained bodies. However, demand far exceeded supply.

A solution to this problem emerged in the form of a new criminal profession, resurrection men. Also known as “sack-’em-up men, shusy-lifters, corp’-lifters, Burkers and noddies,” resurrectionists dug up freshly buried bodies and sold them to anatomists (“An Introduction to Grave Robbing in Scotland,” University of Aberdeen, 2010). Law enforcement largely ignored these activities because resurrection men served a vital sector of the city. While body snatching was illegal, those found guilty faced only misdemeanor charges as long as they took nothing from the grave except the cadaver. As a result, the Scottish people took the protection of their loved ones’ remains into their own hands. Some churchyards utilized heavy stones called mortstones or iron cages called mortsafes to deter resurrectionists.