In ancient times, people regarded the process of a snake shedding its skin as one of recovery and renewal, symbolizing the dual nature of medicine: life and death, illness and health. People extracted medicinally valuable parts from snake corpses, yet they also knew that venom entering the bloodstream was fatal. Thus, snakes also represented the contradictory nature of drugs and poisons, which were difficult to distinguish from one another.
Since the Renaissance, dissecting corpses had been an issue that challenged legal and ethical boundaries. In 1752, Britain passed a law stipulating that all murderers were to be dissected after execution, which was considered a humiliating disgrace added to the punishment of death. In fact, people had regarded dissection as an insult as early as the Middle Ages, though no laws had been established at the time. The "anatomical theaters" that became popular in Padua were considered more entertaining than educational. Although corpses were still dissected there, those wishing to study medicine often went to Britain.
The gallows at Tyburn gallows could execute eight people at once. Since the reign of Henry VIII, the Barber-Surgeons' Company had been allotted four corpses, later increased to six, but it was still not enough. Thus, grave robbing and the trade in corpses grew increasingly rampant. Grave robbers often paced around cemeteries and funeral processions, watching for targets and waiting for their chance. On the second night after a burial, they would drag out the body and fill the earth back in.
After a whale died, other creatures in the ocean decomposed it, ensuring that nothing went to waste. Henry and Joannes had encountered such body snatchers when they were studying. So long as a corpse had not turned green or decayed, it sold for two guineas and one Danish krone. Infants were measured from