The reason being, having the body dissected after death was considered to be a fate worse than death.[4][5] The Murder Act of 1752 permitted that the bodies of murderers be dissected after death to contribute to medical knowledge.[5] After the criminal was hanged, medical students would be there as the body was taken down from the gallows and would argue over who would dissect the body, making the anatomist as feared as the executioner himself.[5] However, as demand began to outstrip supply, shortage of corpses often discouraged medical schools from scrutinizing their suppliers too closely. Criminal elements were attracted to the lucrative trade and resurrectionists, or body snatchers, resorted to grave robbing to supply the market. The scale of the problem can be seen from the 1831 confessions of the London Burkers, who admitted to stealing 500–1000 bodies for anatomists, over a twelve-year career.