Mortsafe

This was due to the necessity for medical students to learn anatomy by attending dissections of human subjects, which was frustrated by the very limited allowance of dead bodies – for example the corpses of executed criminals – granted by the government, which controlled the supply.

[1] The British authorities turned a blind eye to grave-rifling because surgeons and students were working to advance medical knowledge.

In the early 19th century, with the great increase in numbers of schools and students, there was continual rifling of secluded graveyards, fights in city burial grounds and other disturbances.

Revelations led to public outrage, particularly in Scotland, where there was great reverence for the dead and belief in the Resurrection.

The rich could afford heavy table tombstones, vaults, mausoleums and iron cages around graves.

Societies were formed to purchase them and control their use, with annual membership fees, and charges made to non-members.

It was about this time that vaults – repositories for dead bodies – were built by public subscription in Scotland, with their use governed by rules and regulations.

Likely all communities near the Scottish schools of medicine in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen employed some means of protecting the dead.

One has been restored and hung in a church porch, with an explanatory note, by the East Lothian Antiquary Society.

[4] There are two mortsafes in reasonable condition outside the old Aberfoyle church in Stirling, which was 30 miles from the nearest School of Anatomy in Glasgow.