An anatomy murder, sometimes called burking in British English after the case of Burke and Hare, is a murder committed in order to sell all or part of the victim's body for use in medical dissection or anatomy teaching. It differs from a murder for body parts because the individual organs and tissue have no separate medicinal value in these cases; the motive is created entirely by demand from medical schools for cadavers to dissect. The most notorious cases date to the Scientific Revolution and the early nineteenth century, when the supply of legally available bodies for anatomy lagged far behind demand, and rumors of such killings persist wherever that same demand for cadavers exists.
Facts
Elements of OffenseAn anatomy murder is distinguished from a murder for body parts because the individual organs and tissue have no separate medicinal value. 1 Notable ExampleWilliam Burke and William Hare committed the most notorious anatomy murders, killing 16 people over the course of a year and selling the cadavers to anatomist Robert Knox. 1 Jurisdiction VariationLegislative responses varied by jurisdiction: Great Britain passed the Anatomy Act 1832, while Massachusetts passed its own Anatomy Act in 1831, both aimed at removing the murder motive. 1 Sources
1. Anatomy murder (Wikipedia)
Lead section
It is not a medicine murder because the individual body parts do not have any medicinal use.
Legislation section
The Massachusetts Anatomy Act of 1831 was also inspired by the anatomy murders.
History section
the most famous of the anatomy murders were carried out by William Burke and William Hare. They killed 16 people over the course of a year, selling the cadavers to the anatomist Robert Knox.
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