Library support specialist unearths history of Phila. grave robbing

Tim Dewysockie practically fell into the subject matter for his recently published book, “Grave Dealings: Body Snatching in Philadelphia, 1762–1883.”

In fact, Dewysockie MA ’20, a library application support specialist at Rowan University Libraries, never intended to write a book at all.

The idea for his book about grave snatching, the illegal removal and sale of corpses, primarily for dissection by medical students, started with a graduate course at Rowan, History of Crime, taught by Professor Emerita of History Joy Wiltenburg, which he took while working toward his master’s degree in history.

Struggling to find a topic for a research paper, he learned from a Campbell Library colleague about the infamous Burke and Hare murders – a series of 16 homicides in Edinburgh, Scotland committed in 1828 by William Burke and William Hare, who sold the corpses to a researcher for dissection in his anatomy lectures.

“Their story led me to wonder if body snatching happened in the United States,” Dewysockie said. “To my surprise, its epicenter in the 18^th and 19^th century wasn’t far from where I lived—Philadelphia—where the first medical school in the country was established. My paper ended up being about the most infamous case of body snatching in the city involving Jefferson Medical College (now Thomas Jefferson University) in 1882.”

Dewysockie said the assignment sparked ever more questions. He wondered what led anatomists and medical students to go to such extremes to advance medicine; why there was a shortage of bodies for medical education; how body snatching worked; how body snatchers and medical schools avoided getting caught; and what happened if they did.

Working closely with Wiltenburg, Dewysockie turned that paper into his master’s thesis on the same topic, amended to focus on the broader history of it in America, beginning in 18^th century Philadelphia.

Unexpected opportunity

Brookline Books, which specializes in Philadelphia-area history, later contacted Dewysockie about turning his research into a manuscript.

“It was a great opportunity to continue researching a topic I still had questions about, to tell the story of body snatching in Philadelphia and America as completely as I could, and to reach a wider audience,” Dewysockie said.

He said the research process proved difficult at first, but he dug in.

“Because body snatching was either illegal or, if you were caught, likely to spur an ‘anatomy’ riot, people weren’t keen to write down their experiences,” he explained. “Researching body snatching involved hunting down scraps of information wherever I could, and the most revealing information was in the private letters of anatomists.”

Although most bodies used for research today are donated today for medical education, Dewysockie said ethical dilemmas still envelop the treatment of human remains obtained in the time of the body snatchers.

The bodies are out there

“There’s worldwide debate surrounding the display and treatment of human remains – some of which were obtained through body snatching—in museums, universities and other institutions,” Dewysockie said.

Some of those remains reside at very well-regarded institutions like the Mütter Museum at The College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

“Is it ethical to display human remains obtained without the permission of the deceased?” he wondered. “What would the respectful display of human remains look like? Does the display of such remains repeat past abuses, or does its educational and research value outweigh other considerations? The purpose of this book is to contextualize these controversies and to tell the history of how these remains were obtained in the first place.”