A Few Facts to Keep You Hanging Around

 On 24 November 1740, William Duell was hanged for murder. He was taken to the surgeons and laid out to be dissected, but he regained consciousness (in those days, hanging killed by strangulation rather than by breaking the neck). Duell had his sentence commuted to transportation.

In 1803, a man named George Foster was hanged for the murder of his wife and child. An Italian named Galvani had recently made a dead frog's legs move by touching them with a wire carrying an electric current. Surgeons experimented with the dead body of Foster. When his arms and legs were touched with electrified wires, they moved. When his head was touched, an eye opened.

On 20 March 1809, Mary Bateman was hanged in York for murder. Afterwards, people paid 3 pence (a significant amount of money at that time) to see her dead body. It was very popular and about 2,700 people paid to see it. Later, her body was dissected by surgeons.