Back in the day, medical schools in Illinois had to do some shady things in order to make advancements in medicine.

Grave Robbers And Medical Schools Worked Together To Help Advance Science

It's amazing how much and how fast medicine and science have advanced in this modern world. New discoveries are made every day. Humans are living longer each year thanks to technology. When it comes to illnesses, we're lucky to live in this era and it's only going to keep on getting better.

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I remember seeing a "Saturday Night Live" skit back in the day poking fun at the primitive methods doctors used back in the day. It's kind of scary to look back at now. I guess we had to start somewhere.

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Like any job, doctors need special training to learn their craft. Of course, you don't want new medical students to work on real people. That could be really dangerous. So how do they learn? Luckily, people will donate their bodies to science after they pass away. So, these students will practice on cadavers.

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Back in the 1800s, people weren't donating their bodies to science so it was very difficult for medical schools to get cadavers for their students. That's when grave robbing in Chicago became big business. They called themselves resurrectionists.

When a person died they would be buried in a cemetery. The resurrectionist would dig up the freshly dead body and then sell it to medical schools. The funny thing is the grave robbers would leave everything but the body in the casket. If they took the stuff, that would be considered stealing.

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At that time, taking the body was not illegal. That would be a strange way to make a living but I guess someone had to do it. Without those resurrectionists, the medical field would've advanced a lot slower.

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