These Cemetery Guns Used to Protect Against Bodysnatchers From the 18th and 19th Centuries
In the 18th and 19th centuries, grave-robbing was a serious problem in Great Britain and the United States. Because surgeons and medical students could only legally dissect executed criminals or people who had donated their bodies to science (not a popular option at the time), a trade in illegally procured corpses sprang up. These body snatchers came to be known as “resurrectionists” or “resurrection men.” And cemetery guns like these were one dramatic strategy used to thwart so-called “resurrection men.”
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