Secret Club Helped 19th Century Boston Doctors

In 19th century Boston, grave robbing was not what you might think. Many of those involved with digging up bodies were using the remains for medical research. Despite the ghoulish undertones, medical training was dependent on a regular supply of human organs necessary for students to practice performing dissections. They couldn’t do it on live persons, and the supply of cadavers typically was limited to the bodies of violent criminals who had been executed.

Like many other major cities, Boston had an anatomist society, known as the Spunkers Club. The Spunkers Club was a group of gentlemen doctors, including John Collins Warren, a founding member of the Massachusetts General Hospital. Joseph Warren, a doctor and patriot who died in the Battle of Bunker Hill, was thought to be the founder of the Club. These honorable men—and others—not only paid for illegally obtained bodies from resurrection men, but also raided graveyards themselves.