Secrets of the Dead: Ben Franklin’s Bones reveals some questionable practices in medicine. In the 18th century, private anatomy schools were set up across London to give medical students the opportunity to learn anatomy by dissecting human cadavers. But supply lagged behind demand. Anatomists needed many more bodies than the ones of hanged murderers, which were the only bodies legally available at that time for their study. This created a business for body snatchers, also known as “resurrectionists,” who exhumed corpses from graves to sell to the anatomists.