The sale of body parts and grave robbing have a long, disturbing history

The theft of dead bodies, whether for science, exploration, or nefarious aims, has long been a part of human history. Some forms of excavation are more socially and historically accepted than others, however.

Archaeologists have been digging up graves for centuries. In January this year, archaeologists in Egypt excavated a mummy covered in layers of gold.

Long before medical schools set up donation programs, they obtained cadavers by unsavory methods — grave robbing — to meet their instructional needs. Grave robbing, especially in Black cemeteries, was common.

In the late 1700s in Massachusetts, dissection of a human body was limited by state law. So several faculty members and students at Harvard University traveled to graveyards and dug up dead bodies to use, according to The Harvard Crimson.

Harvard student Joseph Warren founded the “Spunker Club,” with the purpose robbing graves for medical research. These men, called “resurrectionists,” were present across the country, Carney said.

In response to the Spunker Club, Massachusetts enacted the Act to Protect the Sepulchers of the Dead in 1815, outlawing the disturbance of buried people. The medical school’s solution to this, the Crimson reported, was purchasing cadavers from New York body snatchers.

As the years went by, more laws were passed to provide easier access to cadavers for medical students. The first was the Anatomy Act of 1831, which allowed students to dissect unclaimed bodies deemed indigent, insane, and imprisoned.

When the ability to transplant organs was achieved, all 50 states adopted the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act in 1968, allowing people to donate their bodies to science.

James Davidson, an archeology professor at the University of Florida, wrote that grave robbing of Black bodies around the Dallas area continued into the early 1900s.

Carney said that 60,000 skeletons were being sold out of Calcutta, India, in the 1980s; the practice was outlawed only after authorities learned that the bodies of many children were among them, he said.

There are little to no reports of people digging up graves in the United States in present day, but a grisly underground market for body parts still exists. A recent Reuters investigation found that the “body-breaking industry” profits off of poor Americans, offering to cremate bodies for free in exchange for the ability to sell some of the parts for medical research.

Former Harvard Medical School morgue manager Cedric Lodge, 55, is not accused of selling body parts for science; he allegedly was part of a ghoulish black market of curio collectors and crafts artists. According to Carney, that practice has gained popularity in recent years.

Jon Pichaya Ferry, known as JonsBones on TikTok, is one example of a modern-day bone enthusiast. Ferry, who has nearly 500,000 followers on the platform, gained popularity by showcasing his collection of human bones. His website states he only sells legally procured specimens.

Ray Madoff, a professor of law at Boston College and author of “Immortality and the Law: The Rising Power of the American Dead,” pointed to the complexity in American law surrounding dead bodies.

“American law is grounded in this principle, that when a person dies, their body belongs to no one,” she told the Globe. “This is the foundational principle.”

With the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, people could donate their bodies to medical schools, for example. But once donated, the new owner could use the body how they pleased. There are no legal protections if somebody donated their body for science to an institution that instead chose to use the cadaver as a crash test dummy, Madoff said.

“Nobody has a property interest in a dead body,” she said. “This is what allows these cases to kind of proliferate.”

Elllie Wolfe can be reached at ellie.wolfe@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @elliew0lfe.