Chicago's Body Snatchers | M.P. Pellicer: 

In 1875, Chicago's county hospital was located in the South Side. Even then it was considered old and rickety. The morgue was an out-house attached to the hospital. It was located apart from the main building because of the bad odor coming from it. Bodies would be stretched out on slabs awaiting burial. Only during winter months did the place not smell like a charnel house.