Winter escalation of corpse exhumation

Resurrection, as body-snatching or grave-robbing was called, was the cheapest and surest way to obtain the remains of the newly deceased, especially in winter when bodies decayed more slowly. Students and doctors exhumed bodies from nearby graveyards, exploiting the socially marginalized status of the occupants, whose low standing even restricted slaves' burials to outside the city limits. In the winter of 1788, the number of corpses being exhumed by students increased substantially.