By : George MacGregor
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The Resurrectionist Movement—Its Contributing Causes and Results.
There is perhaps no portion of the social history of Scotland which possesses greater interest of a variety of kinds than that which relates to the rise, development, and ultimate downfall of the resurrectionist movement. To many persons now living, but who are nearing the verge of the unseen world, the interest is in a sense contemporary, for their younger days were spent under the shadow which so long overspread our country; to those of a later generation the traditions—perhaps the events are scarcely of sufficiently remote occurrence to call the stories of them traditions—of that dreadful time served to make their young imaginations vivid, and render them more obedient to behests of their parents or nurses. How many can remember the time when they were frightened into good behaviour by the threat that, if they did not do what they were told, “Burke and Hare” would take them away; or who, passing by a churchyard on a dark night, with the light of the moon casting a gruesome glamour over the tombstones, recalled to mind the tales of the doings of the terrible resurrectionists. How many children—some of them old men and women now—in their play chanted the lines—
“Burke an’ Hare
Fell doun the stair,
Wi’ a body in a box,
Gaun to Doctor Knox”;
who trembled, even during the day, when they passed the houses occupied by these two men in the West Port of Edinburgh, remembering the fearful deeds that were enacted there. But in addition to the extraordinary impression which the resurrectionist movement made on the minds of the people of Scotland, it must be admitted to have had one good result. In the face of restrictive laws it gave an impetus to anatomical study, which was in the first instance beneficial to humanity; and in the second to the medical schools of this country, notably to the Edinburgh medical school, which attained great reputation at the period when the majority of the subjects for dissection were obtained in a manner revolting to the best feelings of humanity.
This practice of violating sepulchres, which must ever be regarded as one of the foulest blots on Scottish civilization, may be said to have had several contributing causes. The principal of these is admitted on all hands to have been the discovery on the part of the medical faculty that the knowledge they possessed of the human frame was founded rather upon uncertain tradition than upon empirical science; that they were practically ignorant of anatomy; and that if they hoped to make any advance in the art of healing human diseases they must devote more attention to a minute study of the dead subject. Having arrived at this conclusion—and it is a wonder they did not do so earlier—they were met by a difficulty brought about by prejudice. The people of Scotland, even in the most lawless ages, had an almost superstitious reverence for the dead; a reverence, indeed, which they did not always pay to the living. In this they only showed their human nature, and exhibited those instincts which seem to characterise men of all countries and all times. The “something beyond” the mortal sphere caused a peculiar regard for the dead; their belief in a resurrection was rather material, and it was thought impossible by many that when the last trump should sound the dead could rise if the bodies were cut up in dissection. The bodies of the dead, therefore, were carefully entombed to await the last call. The almost insurmountable difficulty, then, that presented itself to the doctors when they awoke out of their dream of ignorance, was where to obtain those subjects upon which they could experiment, and gain that knowledge of which they stood so much in need. The prejudice of the people, it has been stated, was against the subjection of the bodies of their deceased friends to such sacrilegious treatment, even though they were willing, for the most part, to admit that benefit was to be derived from it. As a consequence, science and prejudice came into violent conflict, and the war was carried on by the representatives of the former with a determined persistency that led more or less directly to shocking crime, but ultimately to a modus vivendi that was for the interests of all concerned. These were the two main causes of the traffic; but there were others which, while not bearing so directly upon it, greatly aided its development. It received considerable assistance from the remarkable superstitions long attached to graveyards, the stories of ghosts and of wandering spirits
“Doom’d for a certain time to walk the night”;
of spiteful goblins and playful “brownies,” or of the uncanny dabblers in the forbidden art, whose dominion over the world was only during the midnight hour. It was then that the witches met in solemn conclave with the “father of lies” to plot against the peace of humanity, and that the denizens of the nether hell breathed the free air of earth, away from the choking fumes of the infernal brimstone. Such were the beliefs, and it therefore behoved every well-conducted person to keep the house after night-fall; and when any ventured abroad during the magic hours the working of superstition on minds either naturally credulous, or muddled with deep potations at the village tavern, or both, was sure to produce all kinds of apparitions, more or less fearful. Through this means the men employed by the surgeons to obtain bodies for dissection,—men, generally, whose utter absence of moral principle gave them the power to discredit the fears of their more conscientious countrymen,—were enabled for a time to go about their dreadful work with great immunity. Gradually the people threw off their superstitious feelings about church-yards, and considering themselves safe from unhallowed influences by the presence of numbers, they took guard in the protection of the bodies of their friends. Many skirmishes ensued between these watchers and the resurrectionists, and these have given to Scottish literature a large collection of anecdotes of rather a unique description. Then the large iron cages, or railings, placed over graves, give our churchyards an aspect peculiarly their own. All these matters have made an impression on the Scottish mind which it will yet take generations to efface.
There is, however, another aspect in which the resurrectionist movement can be regarded. It gave rise to a series of the most shocking crimes, committed in Edinburgh by Burke and Hare and their female confederates; and the discovery of these, again, brought about a trial occupying a most prominent and curious place in the annals of Scottish criminal law. In that trial legal points of the utmost importance were involved; and in connection with it the most eminent lawyers of the time were engaged. Were it only because of the great trial with which the movement may be said to have terminated it is deserving the attention of all interested in the history of Scotland. Further than that, it brought about the passing of a measure which relieved the medical faculty of the restrictions to inquiry and investigation under which they had so long laboured, and tended towards the development of a science in which humanity is too deeply interested to neglect.
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