“I collected bones from charnel-houses; and disturbed, with profane figures, the tremendous figures of the human frame.” (49)

Body-snatching to learn the “secret of life”, as Frankenstein aimed to do with his cadaver dissections, began with the artists of the Renaissance. Men like Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci were known to raid morgues and freshly dug graves for specimens. As scientific knowledge expanded, body-snatching became so rash and widespread that laws were even passed against it, making it no longer simply a socially unjust act, but an illegal one in England with the Anatomy Act of 1832 (Dr. Frankenstein stole the parts for his creature before this, so technically he was in the clear). In many ways, while his results were drastic and novel – both for his time, and ours – the means by which Shelley depicts Dr. Frankenstein using to achieve these ends, while obscene, are not as profane as present-day readers would originally interpret them to be.

Source:

"From Body Snatching to Bequeathing." SBMJ The international resource for students on the medical world. Web. 23 Aug. 2009. http://archive.student.bmj.com/back_issues/0995/9-bh.htm.