Continuing the list of olde archaic words for your enjoyment and enlightenment:
Resurrection Men - body-snatchers, those who broke open the coffins of the newly buried to supply the demands of the surgical and medical schools. The resurrectionist took the corpse naked, this being in law a misdemeanor, as opposed to a felony if garments were taken as well.
- First applied to Burke and Hare in 1829, who rifled graves to sell the bodies for dissection, and sometimes even murdered people for the same purpose.
Thraw - The Scots thought formerly, and may do still, that to die with what they call a thraw, that is, in pain and contortion, was an indication of having lived an ill life.
- To die with a thraw is reckoned an obvious indication of a bad conscience. When a person was secretly murdered, it was formerly believed that if the corpse were watched with certain mysterious ceremonies, the death-thraws would be reversed in its visage, and it would denounce the perpetrators and circumstances of the murder.
Scrofula - Hard swellings of the glandules of the neck and ears; the King's Evil - so called because it was thought that the touch of the King would cure it.
No comments:
Post a Comment