The story of Halford s flute boy , and what it tells us about the European trade in human remains
Posted 1
AprApril 2021 at 7:00pm
This skeleton came to Melbourne with the University of Melbourne s first professor of medicine . and an incredible backstory.
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At the height of the French Revolution in the late 1700s, a boy sat on the steps of the Notre-Dame cathedral playing a lilting tune on his wooden recorder.
Parisians hurried by, occasionally casting a glance towards the child, perhaps throwing a few coins his way.
But what may have caused them to stop mid-stride was the sight of his legs or, rather, leg. The boy s two thighs were fused at his knee and his leg ended in a single foot.
Peter Christie
Published:
8:00 AM January 17, 2021
St Peter s Churchyard in the centre of Barnstaple at around 1860, the scene for crimes of bodysnatching in times past
- Credit: Contributed
Today medical schools have ample supplies of human bodies to train their students with as attitudes towards religion and death and the sanctity of the body have changed.
In the past, however, surgeons could legally only dissect the bodies of hanged murderers – and there were never enough of these to meet the demand.
Criminals realised there was money to be made and disinterment of the newly buried dead from graveyards (bodysnatching) became a lucrative trade .