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Janet's Reviews > Digging in the Dark: A History of the Yorkshire Resurrectionists
Digging in the Dark: A History of the Yorkshire Resurrectionists
by
by
I rated this a 3.5 to 4 stars out of 5.
Being in the medical field for most of my adult life, I have seen, handled and been around more dead bodies than I would ever care to try to count up. Mind you, I have never been “grave robbing,” or as this novel is titled “Digging In The Dark,” but being in an emergency and trauma setting in the hospital lends itself to a lot of undesirable outcomes, with the most common being death.
In the medical field, there is always a need for cadavers and cadaver labs to educate those doctors, nurses, paramedics, etc. in the most current and relevant way of caring for the patients as they need treatment. I am sure that in an everyday household, one does not think about where these cadavers might come from.
Ben Johnson does an amazing job of walking us through history and how the procurement of cadavers for medical school has evolved throughout time. He explores how times changed from taking the bodies of convicts that died to sell as cadavers to medical school to how this led to the unfortunate crime of murder for money. This is not his only focus, for his book is deeply rooted in the macabre activity of grave robbing, and he has quite a few detailed tales to tell.
While you may be thinking OH NO NOT ANOTHER HISTORY BOOK, I’ve FINISHED school!! Who could NOT love a book that includes fun facts about what kinds of crimes were punishable by hanging? I had two personal favorites.
The first being, “being in the company of gypsies for a month or more.” So… you could hang out with them for three weeks but for heaven sake, DON’T LOSE TRACK OF TIME! If you do, you will hang from your neck by a “short jump” (one not intended to break your neck, but rather to allow you to die by suffocation) until you are dead.
The second being, “strong evidence of malice in a child aged 7-14 years of age.” WHOA!! Calm down all you parents out there!!! This was back in the 1800’s, and you can’t hang your children for being pains in the ass anymore!
He does recount another tale of John Bartendale, who was hung for 45 minutes from his neck, buried, and then found still alive and banging around in his buried casket. Talk about the walking dead! I am thinking that good for this gentleman that the judge saw things his way and chose NOT to rehang him from the neck, stating that his sentence of “hung from the neck until dead” was carried out, and they pardoned him from all his crimes. (I hope that Bartendale decided that a redo meant to walk the straight and narrow path. Can you imagine being hung twice?)
Johnson also includes the famous case of Burke and Hare who made killing a profitable business by selling their recent victims to Dr. Knox, who promptly used the bodies in his cadaver lab, not asking, nor caring where the recently departed had come from. In total, Burke and Hare produced 16 bodies to Dr. Knox, and only one of these souls died from natural causes. The most interesting part of this story for me is how once convicted, Burke was sentenced to death by hanging (Europe loved their hangings), and then his body ordered to be used in the same cadaver labs he had taken his victims to. There, the surgeon dipped his pen in the blood from Burke's head and wrote with it on parchment paper as if writing with ink, and they tanned his skin and made a book from it, as well as they made a death mask of his face. (Um, and they were mad at Burke for smothering victims?)
This is a fascinating compendium containing many rich tales of grave robbers and their victims (including children) that comes with first-hand accountings by newspapers and journals dated from the time of the robbing. I did not, however, find a source page, however, I was reading an ARC, and the print copy may have had one included. If you enjoy a good macabre story and like it even better if it’s true, then this novel is for you!
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. I would like to thank Netgalley, Pen & Sword Publishers, and the thorough and grizzly author Ben Johnson for an opportunity to read about the dark activity of grave robbing.
Being in the medical field for most of my adult life, I have seen, handled and been around more dead bodies than I would ever care to try to count up. Mind you, I have never been “grave robbing,” or as this novel is titled “Digging In The Dark,” but being in an emergency and trauma setting in the hospital lends itself to a lot of undesirable outcomes, with the most common being death.
In the medical field, there is always a need for cadavers and cadaver labs to educate those doctors, nurses, paramedics, etc. in the most current and relevant way of caring for the patients as they need treatment. I am sure that in an everyday household, one does not think about where these cadavers might come from.
Ben Johnson does an amazing job of walking us through history and how the procurement of cadavers for medical school has evolved throughout time. He explores how times changed from taking the bodies of convicts that died to sell as cadavers to medical school to how this led to the unfortunate crime of murder for money. This is not his only focus, for his book is deeply rooted in the macabre activity of grave robbing, and he has quite a few detailed tales to tell.
While you may be thinking OH NO NOT ANOTHER HISTORY BOOK, I’ve FINISHED school!! Who could NOT love a book that includes fun facts about what kinds of crimes were punishable by hanging? I had two personal favorites.
The first being, “being in the company of gypsies for a month or more.” So… you could hang out with them for three weeks but for heaven sake, DON’T LOSE TRACK OF TIME! If you do, you will hang from your neck by a “short jump” (one not intended to break your neck, but rather to allow you to die by suffocation) until you are dead.
The second being, “strong evidence of malice in a child aged 7-14 years of age.” WHOA!! Calm down all you parents out there!!! This was back in the 1800’s, and you can’t hang your children for being pains in the ass anymore!
He does recount another tale of John Bartendale, who was hung for 45 minutes from his neck, buried, and then found still alive and banging around in his buried casket. Talk about the walking dead! I am thinking that good for this gentleman that the judge saw things his way and chose NOT to rehang him from the neck, stating that his sentence of “hung from the neck until dead” was carried out, and they pardoned him from all his crimes. (I hope that Bartendale decided that a redo meant to walk the straight and narrow path. Can you imagine being hung twice?)
Johnson also includes the famous case of Burke and Hare who made killing a profitable business by selling their recent victims to Dr. Knox, who promptly used the bodies in his cadaver lab, not asking, nor caring where the recently departed had come from. In total, Burke and Hare produced 16 bodies to Dr. Knox, and only one of these souls died from natural causes. The most interesting part of this story for me is how once convicted, Burke was sentenced to death by hanging (Europe loved their hangings), and then his body ordered to be used in the same cadaver labs he had taken his victims to. There, the surgeon dipped his pen in the blood from Burke's head and wrote with it on parchment paper as if writing with ink, and they tanned his skin and made a book from it, as well as they made a death mask of his face. (Um, and they were mad at Burke for smothering victims?)
This is a fascinating compendium containing many rich tales of grave robbers and their victims (including children) that comes with first-hand accountings by newspapers and journals dated from the time of the robbing. I did not, however, find a source page, however, I was reading an ARC, and the print copy may have had one included. If you enjoy a good macabre story and like it even better if it’s true, then this novel is for you!
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. I would like to thank Netgalley, Pen & Sword Publishers, and the thorough and grizzly author Ben Johnson for an opportunity to read about the dark activity of grave robbing.
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Digging in the Dark.
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Reading Progress
June 1, 2017
– Shelved
June 3, 2017
–
Started Reading
June 4, 2017
–
Finished Reading
