The Dark Side of John Hunter

"Resurrection men" bagging up
a corpse while the skeleton of
Death taps one on the shoulder
(Wellcome Library)

The general public's abhorrence of dissection frustrated the surgeons' desire for knowledge.  Therefore, a market in dead bodies grew, and "resurrection men" would dig up freshly buried bodies and sell them to surgeons, who did not ask questions.  Like his brother William, John Hunter took fees from students to supervise their dissections.  The dead bodies (legal and illegal) were delivered to Hunter's home in the dark. 

Titled, "The Anatomist Overtaken by the Watch ...
Carry'ng Off Miss W-- in a Hamper"
The nightwatchman on left catches bodysnatcher
in middle, while William Hunter runs away with
a skull under his arm; 1773
(Wellcome Library)

In order to combat the stigma against surgeons and dissection, John Hunter gave lectures to the wealthy intelligentsia at grand occasions with lavish food.  Every Saturday in May and October he opened his museum of dissected human and animal specimens to the public for tours.

As time went along, the friends and families of private patients asked to have postmortems done, and so did the courts when a suspicious death occurred.  Newspapers and magazines published reports of dissections of famous people, and Gentleman's Magazine published a drawing of King George II's heart from his postmortem in 1762.  In the Hunterian Museum today, there are still several organs that are displayed and labelled with famous patients' names.
Hunter spent thousands of pounds to obtain valuable specimens, and when he died suddenly, his family had no other assets.  The government purchased his collection in 1799 and donated it to the Royal College of Surgeons for preservation (Displays, Hunterian Museum, London; viewed 18 October 2012). 

Byrne with 3 normal sized men
and a dwarf
(Wellcome Library)

It can be argued that Hunter's greatest specimen was not the 144 ounce tumor he removed from a man's neck in a 25 minute surgery (which you can see at the Hunterian Museum), but the skeleton of Charles Byrne, "The Irish Giant."

Byrne arrived in London in 1782, and was allegedly over 8 feet tall.  Hunter got so excited about possessing Byrne's skeleton that he offered Byrne money to prepurchase his remains.  This terrified Byrne and he made arrangements to be buried at sea in a lead coffin.  However, as he was dying in 1783, Hunter bribed his "corpse watcher" with a reported 500 pounds (Porter, Bodies, 56).  That amount of money equivalent to $64,000 (U.S.) today (http://www.futureboy.us/fsp/dollar.fsp?quantity=500&currency=pounds&fromYear=1783, accessed 19 November 2012).  Byrne's 7'7" skeleton is still displayed at the Museum, even though there have been recent ethical arguments for his original wishes to be respected and to bury him at sea. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/dec/22/irish-giant-skeleton-museum-display, with better photo of skeleton,accessed 20 November 2012.)



Charles Byrne's skeleton in far back, surrounded by bottles
and bottles of human and animal specimens
Hunterian Museum gallery at Royal College of Surgeons, London
photography not usually allowed
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Byrne_(giant))
Gallery seen 18 October 2012, photo accessed 19 November 2012.

Back to "resurrection men" ... the demand for bodies became so lucrative that in Edinburgh in 1827-28, two men named Burke and Hare murdered 17 people to sell their bodies to a private anatomy lecturer.