GRAVE ROBBERS AT BEVIS MARKS CEMETERYGrave robbers who stole newly buried bodies for clandestine sale to anatomy doctors and students was rife in the 18th and early 19th century. Various devices were proposed to counter this designed to make it hard to dig up the body or to keep it safe until it was no longer of use to anatomists because of advanced decay. The picture is of a Scottish 'mort stone' buried placed over the coffin and later dug up and reused elsewhere once the body was sufficiently decayed.The will of Joseph Cortissos (who also seems to feared premature burial) who died in 1789 specified in 1786 that :"... with respect to my body, as I neither wish to grope underground, nor to be dissected after I am dead, especially as it has become a practice to steal the dead from the Jews' burial ground, it is my will and desire not to have my corpse buried until such time as putrefaction shall clearly appear, and that my corpse will not hold any longer. I desire that a high dry alcaly [sic] of pearl ashes dried on the fire be put in my coffin and spread over my body before I am buried, as an assistance to consume my flesh; that a sack of quick lime be put in my coffin and spread over my body before I am buried as an assistant [sic] to consume the flesh, that a sack of quick-lime be laid under my coffin in my grave and another sack of quick lime poured on my corpse (which may be easily be complied wit by taking off the lid before my coffin is put in the ground); which done, that the coffin lid be laid on the lime and the earth over that; that then, the newly-invented grave stone tp prevent the stealing of the corpse, be sunk in my grave, where I hope my remains will be undisturbed." In a codicil of 1788 he "... discharge[d] my wife, from the trouble, from having the high dried alcolina being thrown into my coffin also of quick lime one at the bottom and the other on the tope as I will not have any of that."