About this episode

The episode discusses the practice of body snatching in the 18th century and its societal implications.

In the 18th century, it was an open secret that new corpses would often be taken from graves and used as teaching aids for medical students. Not the most pleasant thing to think about, but much of society was pretty happy to ignore the elephant in the room. But in April of 1788, something changed, and it suddenly brought a lot more attention to the cottage industry of body snatching. Listen to all 4 episodes of 'William 'Boss' Tweed' wherever you get your podcasts, or to get early, ad-free access to the entire season first, subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or at ⁠⁠Americancriminal.com⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Topics covered

• body snatching
• medical education
• 18th century
• crime
• societal norms

Keywords

• body snatching
• medical students
• 18th century
• grave robbing
• society

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Airship & Evergreen Podcasts

Books & works: William 'Boss' Tweed

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