Executing Magic in the Modern Era
Subtitle: Criminal Bodies and the Gallows in Popular Medicine
Contributors: Matteoni, Francesca
Publisher: Springer Nature
Published: 2017
Place of publication: Basingstoke
Number of pages: 122
ISBN-13: 9783319595191
Subjects: History
Description: This book explores the magical and medical history of executions from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century by looking at the afterlife potency of criminal corpses, the healing activities of the executioner, and the magic of the gallows site. The use of corpses in medicine and magic has been recorded back into antiquity. The lacerated bodies of Roman gladiators were used as a source of curative blood, for instance. In early modern Europe, a great trade opened up in ancient Egyptian mummies and the fat of executed criminals, plundered as medicinal cure-alls. However, this is the first book to consider the demand for the blood of the executed, the desire for human fat, the resort to the hanged man’s hand, and the trade in hanging rope in the modern era. It ends by look at the spiritual afterlife of dead criminals.
Notes: Open Access Unrestricted online access

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