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+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
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+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #69167 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69167)
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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of Body-snatching, by Anonymous
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: Body-snatching
-
-Author: Anonymous
-
-Release Date: October 16, 2022 [eBook #69167]
-
-Language: English
-
-Produced by: Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
-             http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
-             available at The Internet Archive)
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BODY-SNATCHING ***
-
-
-
-
-
-                            BODY-SNATCHING.
-
-                             Published by
-
-                      BALDWIN, CRADOCK, AND JOY,
-
-                                LONDON.
-
-                                 1824.
-
-
-                            T. C. HANSARD,
-                        Pater-noster-row Press.
-
-
-
-
-ADVERTISEMENT.
-
-
-The following pages are reprinted, with some modification, from the
-third Number of the Westminster Review. They treat of a subject on which
-it is of great importance that the public should be well informed, and
-it is in order to facilitate the circulation of the knowledge which they
-communicate respecting it, that the proprietors of the above-mentioned
-work have liberally consented to the re-publication of this article in
-the form of a pamphlet.
-
-
-
-
-BODY-SNATCHING.
-
-
-Every one desires to live as long as he can. Every one values health
-“above all gold and treasure.” Every one knows that, as far as his own
-individual good is concerned, protracted life and a frame of body sound
-and strong, free from the thousand pains which flesh is heir to, are
-unspeakably more important than all other objects, because life and
-health must be secured before any possible result of any possible
-circumstance can be of consequence to him. In the improvement of the art
-which has for its object the preservation of health and life, every
-individual is, therefore, deeply interested. An enlightened physician
-and a skilful surgeon, are in the daily habit of administering to their
-fellow men more real and unquestionable good, than is communicated, or
-communicable by any other class of human beings to another. Ignorant
-physicians and surgeons are the most deadly enemies of the community:
-the plague itself is not so destructive: its ravages are at distant
-intervals, and are accompanied with open and alarming notice of its
-purpose and power; theirs are constant, silent, secret; and it is while
-they are looked up to as saviours, with the confidence of hope, that
-they give speed to the progress of disease and certainty to the stroke
-of death.
-
-It is deeply to be lamented that the community, in general, are so
-entirely ignorant of all that relates to the art and the science of
-medicine. An explanation of the functions of the animal economy; of
-their most common and important deviations from a healthy state; of the
-remedies best adapted to restore them to a sound condition, and of the
-mode in which they operate, as far as that is known, ought to form a
-part of every course of liberal education. The profound ignorance of the
-people on all these subjects is attended with many disadvantages to
-themselves, and operates unfavourably on the medical character. In
-consequence of this want of information, persons neither know what are
-the attainments of the man in whose hands they place their life, nor
-what they ought to be; they can neither form an opinion of the course of
-education which it is incumbent upon him to follow, nor judge of the
-success with which he has availed himself of the means of knowledge
-which have been afforded him. There is one branch of medical education
-in particular, the foundation, in fact, on which the whole
-superstructure must be raised, the necessity of which is not commonly
-understood, but which requires only to be stated to be perceived.
-Perhaps it is impossible to name any one subject which it is of more
-importance that the community should understand. It is one in which
-every man’s life is deeply implicated: it is one on which every man’s
-ignorance or information will have some influence. We shall therefore,
-show the kind of knowledge which it is indispensable that the physician
-and the surgeon should possess: we shall illustrate, by a reference to
-particular cases, the reason why knowledge of this kind cannot be
-dispensed with: and we shall explain, by a statement of facts, the
-nature and extent of the obstacles which at present oppose the
-acquisition of this knowledge. We repeat, there is no subject in which
-every reader can be so immediately and deeply interested, and we trust
-that he will give us his calm and unprejudiced attention.
-
-The basis of all medical and surgical knowledge is anatomy. Not a
-single step can be made either in medicine or surgery, considered either
-as an art or a science, without it. This should seem self-evident, and
-to need neither proof nor illustration: nevertheless as it is useful
-occasionally to contemplate the evidence of important truth, we shall
-show why it is that there can be no rational medicine, and no safe
-surgery, without a thorough knowledge of anatomy.
-
-Disease, which it is the object of these arts to prevent and to cure, is
-denoted by disordered function: disordered function cannot be understood
-without a knowledge of healthy function; healthy function cannot be
-understood without a knowledge of structure; structure cannot be
-understood unless it be examined.
-
-The organs on which all the important functions of the human body depend
-are concealed from the view. There is no possibility of ascertaining
-their situation and connections, much less their nature and operation,
-without inspecting the interior of this curious and complicated machine.
-The results of the mechanism are visible; the mechanism itself is
-concealed, and must be investigated to be perceived. The operations of
-nature are seldom entirely hidden from the human eye; still less are
-they obtruded upon it, but over the most curious and wonderful
-operations of the animal economy so thick a veil is drawn, that they
-never could have been perceived without the most patient and minute
-research. The circulation of the blood, for example, never could have
-been discovered without dissection. Notwithstanding the partial
-knowledge of anatomy which must have been acquired by the accidents to
-which the human body is exposed, by attention to wounded men, by the
-observance of bodies killed by violence; by the huntsman in using his
-prey; by the priest in immolating his victims; by the augur in pursuing
-his divinations; by the slaughter of animals; by the dissection of
-brutes; and even occasionally by the dissection of the human body,
-century after century passed away, without a suspicion having been
-excited of the real functions of the two great systems of vessels,
-arteries and veins. It was not until the beginning of the 17th century,
-when anatomy was ardently cultivated, and had made considerable
-progress, that the valves of the veins and of the heart were discovered,
-and subsequently that the great Harvey, the pupil of the anatomist who
-discovered the latter, by inspecting the structure of these valves; by
-contemplating their disposition; by reasoning upon their use, was led to
-suspect the course of the blood, and afterwards to demonstrate it.
-Several systems of vessels in which the most important functions of
-animal life are carried on--the absorbent system, for example, and even
-that portion of it which receives the food after it is digested, and
-which conveys it into the blood, are invisible to the naked eye, except
-under peculiar circumstances: whence it must be evident, not only that
-the interior of the human body must be laid open, in order that its
-organs may be seen; but that these organs must be minutely and patiently
-dissected, in order that their structure may be understood.
-
-The most important diseases have their seat in the organs of the body;
-an accurate acquaintance with their situation is, therefore, absolutely
-necessary, in order to ascertain the seats of disease; but for the
-reasons already assigned, their situation cannot be learnt, without the
-study of anatomy. In several regions, organs the most different in
-structure and function are placed close to each other. In what is termed
-the epigastric region, for example, are situated the stomach, the liver,
-the gall bladder, the first portion of the small intestine (the
-duodenum) and a portion of the large intestine (the colon); each of
-these organs is essentially different in structure and in use, and is
-liable to distinct diseases. Diseases the most diversified, therefore
-requiring the most opposite treatment, may exist in the same region of
-the body; the discrimination of which is absolutely impossible, without
-that knowledge which the study of anatomy alone can impart.
-
-The seat of pain is often at a great distance from that of the affected
-organ. In disease of the liver, pain is generally felt at the top of the
-right shoulder. The right phrenic nerve sends a branch to the liver: the
-third cervical nerve, from which the phrenic arises, distributes
-numerous branches to the neighbourhood of the shoulder: thus is
-established a nervous communication between the shoulder and the liver.
-This is a fact which nothing but anatomy could teach, and affords the
-explanation of a symptom which nothing but anatomy could give. The
-knowledge of it would infallibly correct a mistake into which a person
-who is ignorant of it would be sure to fall: in fact, persons ignorant
-of it do constantly commit the error. We have known several instances in
-which organic disease of the liver has been considered, and treated as
-rheumatism of the shoulder. In each of these cases, disease in a most
-important organ might have been allowed to steal on insidiously until it
-became incurable: while a person, acquainted with anatomy, would have
-detected it at once, and cured it without difficulty. Many cases have
-occurred of persons who have been supposed to labour under disease of
-the liver, and who have been treated accordingly: on examination after
-death, the liver has been found perfectly healthy, but there has been
-discovered extensive disease of the brain. Disease of the liver is often
-mistaken for disease of the lungs: on the other hand, the lungs have
-been found full of ulcers, when they were supposed to have been
-perfectly sound, and when every symptom was referred to disease of the
-liver. Persons are constantly attacked with convulsions--children
-especially; convulsions are spasms: spasms, of course, are to be treated
-by antispasmodics. This is the notion amongst people ignorant of
-medicine: it is the notion amongst old medical men: it is the notion
-amongst half-educated young ones. All this time these convulsions are
-merely a symptom; that symptom depends upon, and denotes, most important
-disease in the brain: the only chance of saving life, is the prompt and
-vigorous application of proper remedies to the brain; but the
-practitioner whose mind is occupied with the symptom, and who prescribes
-antispasmodics, not only loses the time in which alone any thing can be
-done to snatch the victim from death, but by his remedies absolutely
-adds fuel to the flame which is consuming his patient. In disease of the
-hip-joint pain is felt, not in the hip, but, in the early stage of the
-disease, at the knee. This also depends on nervous communication. The
-most dreadful consequences daily occur from an ignorance of this single
-fact. In all these cases error is inevitable, without a knowledge of
-anatomy: it is scarcely possible with it: in all these cases error is
-fatal: in all these cases anatomy alone can prevent the error--anatomy
-alone can correct it. Experience, so far from leading to its detection,
-would only establish it in men’s minds, and render its removal
-impossible. What is called experience is of no manner of use to an
-ignorant and unreflecting practitioner. In nothing does the adage, that
-it is the wise only who profit by experience, receive so complete an
-illustration as in medicine. A man who is ignorant of certain
-principles, and who is incapable of reasoning in a certain manner, may
-have daily before him, for fifty years, cases affording the most
-complete evidence of the truth of those principles, and of the
-importance of the deduction to which they lead, without observing the
-one, or deducing the other. Hence the most profoundly ignorant of
-medicine are often the oldest members of the profession, and those who
-have had the most extensive practice. A medical education, founded on a
-knowledge of anatomy, is, therefore, not only indispensable to prevent
-the most fatal errors, but to enable a person to obtain advantage from
-those sources of improvement which extensive practice may open to him.
-
-To the surgeon, anatomy is eminently what Bacon has so beautifully said
-knowledge in general is: it is power--it is power to lessen pain, to
-save life, and to eradicate diseases, which, without its aid, would be
-incurable and fatal. It is impossible to convey to the reader a clear
-conception of this truth, without a reference to particular cases; and
-the subject is one of such extreme importance, that it may be worth
-while to direct the attention for a moment to two or three of the
-capital diseases which the surgeon is daily called upon to treat.
-Aneurism, for example, is a disease of an artery, and consists of a
-preternatural dilatation of its coats. This dilatation arises from
-debility of the vessel, whence, unable to resist the impetus of the
-blood, it yields, and is dilated into a sac. When once the disease is
-induced, it commonly goes on to increase with a steady and uninterrupted
-progress, until at last it suddenly bursts, and the patient expires
-either instantaneously from loss of blood, or by degrees from repeated
-losses. When left to itself, it almost uniformly proves fatal in one or
-other of these modes; yet, before the time of Galen, no notice was taken
-of this terrible malady. The ancients, indeed, who believed that the
-arteries were air tubes, could have had no conception of the existence
-of an aneurism. Were the number of individuals in Europe, who are now
-annually cured of aneurism, by the interference of art, to be assumed as
-the basis of a calculation of the number of persons who must have
-perished by this disease, from the beginning of the world to the time of
-Galen, it would convey some conception of the extent to which anatomical
-knowledge is the means of saving human life.
-
-The only way in which it is possible to cure this disease is, to produce
-an obliteration of the cavity of the artery. This is the object of the
-operation. The diseased artery is exposed, and a ligature is passed
-around it, above the dilatation, by means of which the blood is
-prevented from flowing into the sac, and inflammation is excited in the
-vessel; in consequence of which its sides adhere together, and its
-cavity becomes obliterated. The success of the operation depends
-entirely on the completeness of the adhesion of the sides of the vessel,
-and the consequent obliteration of its cavity. This adhesion will not
-take place unless the portion of the artery to which the ligature is
-applied be in a sound state. If it be diseased, as it almost always is
-near the seat of the aneurism, when the process of nature is completed
-by which the ligature is removed, hemorrhage takes place, and the
-patient dies just as if the aneurism had been left to itself. For a long
-time the ligature was applied as close as possible to the seat of the
-aneurism: the aneurismal sac was laid open in its whole extent, and the
-blood it contained was scooped out. The consequence, was that a large
-deep-seated sore, composed of parts in an unhealthy state, was formed:
-it was necessary to the cure, that this sore should suppurate,
-granulate, and heal: a process which the constitution was frequently
-unable to support. Moreover, there was a constant danger that the
-patient would perish from hemorrhage, through the want of adhesion of
-the sides of the artery. The profound knowledge of healthy and of
-diseased structure, and of the laws of the animal economy by which both
-are regulated, which John Hunter had acquired from anatomy, suggested to
-this eminent man a mode of operating, the effect of which, in preserving
-human life, has placed him high in the rank of the benefactors of his
-race. This consummate anatomist saw, that the reason why death so often
-followed the common operation was, because that process which was
-essential to its success was prevented by the diseased condition of the
-artery. He perceived that the vessel, at some distance from the
-aneurism, was in a sound state; and conceived that, if the ligature were
-applied to this distant part, that is, to a sound instead of a diseased
-portion of the artery, this necessary process would not be counteracted.
-To this there was one capital objection, that it would often be
-necessary to apply the ligature around the main trunk of an artery,
-before it gives off its branches, in consequence of which the parts
-below the ligature would be deprived of their supply of blood, and would
-therefore mortify. So frequent and great are the communications between
-all the arteries of the body, however, that he thought it probable, that
-a sufficient supply would be borne to these parts through the medium of
-collateral branches. For an aneurism in the ham, he, therefore, boldly
-cut down upon the main trunk of the artery which supplies the lower
-extremity; and applied a ligature around it, where it is seated near the
-middle of the thigh, in the confident expectation that, though he thus
-deprived the limb of the supply of blood which it received through its
-direct channel, it would not perish. His knowledge of the processes of
-the animal economy led him to expect that the force of the circulation
-being thus taken off from the aneurismal sac, the progress of the
-disease would be stopped; that the sac itself, with all its contents,
-would be absorbed; that by this means the whole tumour would be removed,
-and that an opening into it would be unnecessary. The most complete
-success followed this noble experiment, and the sensations which this
-philosopher experienced when he witnessed the event, must have been
-exquisite, and have constituted an appropriate reward for the
-application of profound knowledge to the mitigation of human suffering.
-After Hunter followed Abernethy, who, treading in the footsteps of his
-master, for an aneurism of the femoral, placed a ligature around the
-external iliac artery; lately the internal iliac itself has been taken
-up, and surgeons have tied arteries of such importance, that they have
-been themselves astonished at the extent and splendor of their success.
-Every individual on whom an operation of this kind has been successfully
-performed, is snatched by it from certain and inevitable death!
-
-The symptom by which an aneurism is distinguished from every other
-tumour is, chiefly, its pulsating motion. But when an aneurism has
-become very large, it ceases to pulsate; and when an abscess is seated
-near an artery of great magnitude, it acquires a pulsating motion;
-because the pulsations of the artery are perceptible through the
-abscess. The real nature of cases of this kind cannot possibly be
-ascertained, without a most careful investigation, combined with an
-exact knowledge of the structure and relative position of all the parts
-in the neighbourhood of the tumour. Pelletan, one of the most
-distinguished surgeons of France, was one day called to a man who, after
-a long walk, was seized with a severe pain in the leg, over the seat of
-which appeared a tumour, which was attended with a pulsation so violent
-that it lifted up the hand of the examiner. There seemed every reason to
-suppose that the case was an aneurismal swelling. This acute observer,
-however, in comparing the affected with the sound limb, perceived in the
-latter a similar throbbing. On careful examination he discovered that,
-by a particular disposition in this individual, one of the main arteries
-of the leg (the anterior tibial) deviated from its usual course, and
-instead of plunging deep between the muscles, lay immediately under the
-skin and fascia. The truth was, that the man in the exertion of walking
-had ruptured some muscular fibres, and the uncommon distribution of the
-artery gave to this accident these peculiar symptoms. The real nature of
-this case could not possibly have been ascertained, but by an anatomist.
-The same surgeon has recorded the case of a man who, having fallen twice
-from his horse, and experienced for several years considerable
-uneasiness in his back, was at length afflicted with acute pain in the
-abdomen. At the same time an oval, irregularly circumscribed tumour made
-its appearance in the right flank. It presented a distinct fluctuation,
-and had all the appearance of a collection of matter depending on caries
-of the vertebræ. The pain was seated chiefly at the lower portion of
-that part of the spine which forms the back, which was, moreover,
-distorted; and this might have confirmed the opinion that the case was a
-lumbar abscess with caries. Pelletan, however, who well knew that an
-aneurism, as it enlarges, may destroy any bone in its neighbourhood, saw
-that the disease was an aneurism, and predicted that the patient must
-perish. On opening the body (for the man lived only ten days after
-Pelletan first saw him) an aneurismal tumour was discovered, which
-nearly filled the cavity of the abdomen. If this case had been mistaken
-for lumbar abscess, and the tumour had been opened with a view of
-affording an exit to the matter, the man would have died in a few
-seconds. There is no surgeon of discernment and experience whose
-attention has not been awakened, and whose sagacity has not been put to
-the test, by the occurrence of similar cases in his own practice. The
-consequence of error is almost always instantaneously fatal. The
-catalogue of such disastrous events is long and melancholy. Richerand
-has recorded, that Ferrand, head surgeon of the Hotel-Dieu, mistook an
-aneurism in the armpit for an abscess; plunged his knife into the
-swelling, and killed the patient. De Haen speaks of a person who died in
-consequence of an opening which was made, contrary to the advice of
-Boerhaave in a similar tumour at the knee. Vesalius was consulted about
-a tumour in the back, which he pronounced to be an aneurism; but an
-ignorant practitioner having made an opening into it, the patient
-instantly bled to death. Nothing can be more easy than to confound an
-aneurism of the artery of the neck with a swelling of the glands in its
-neighbourhood: with a swelling of the cellular substance which surrounds
-the artery; with abscesses of various kinds; but if a surgeon were to
-fall into this error, and to open a carotid aneurism, his patient would
-certainly be dead in the space of a few moments. It must be evident,
-then, that a thorough knowledge of anatomy is not only indispensable to
-the proper treatment of cases of this description, but also to the
-prevention of the most fatal mistakes.
-
-There is nothing in surgery of more importance than the proper treatment
-of hemorrhage. Of the confusion and terror occasioned by the sight of a
-human being from whom the blood is gushing in torrents, and whose
-condition none of the spectators is able to relieve, no one can form an
-adequate conception, but those who have witnessed it. In all such cases
-there is one thing proper to be done, the prompt performance of which is
-generally as certainly successful, as the neglect of it is inevitably
-fatal. It is impossible to conceive of a more terrible situation than
-that of a medical man who knows not what to do on such an emergency. He
-is confused; he hesitates: while he is deciding what measures to adopt
-the patient expires: he can never think of that man’s death without
-horror, for he is conscious that, but for his ignorance he might have
-averted his patient’s fate. The ancient surgeons were constantly placed
-in this situation, and the dread inspired by it retarded the progress of
-surgery more than all other causes put together. Not only were they
-terrified from interfering with the most painful and destructive
-diseases, which experience has proved to be capable of safe and easy
-removal, but they were afraid to cut even the most trivial tumour. When
-they ventured to remove a part, they attempted it only by means of the
-ligature, or by the application of burning irons. When they determined
-to amputate, they never thought of doing so, until the limb had
-mortified, and the dead had separated from the living parts; for they
-were absolutely afraid to cut into the living flesh. They had no means
-of stopping hemorrhage, but by the application of astringents to the
-bleeding vessels, remedies which were inert; or of burning irons, or
-boiling turpentine, expedients which were not only inert but cruel.
-Surgeons now know that the grand means of stopping hemorrhage is
-compression of the bleeding vessel. If pressure be made on the trunk of
-an artery, though blood be flowing from a thousand branches given off
-from it, the bleeding will cease. Should the situation of the artery be
-such as to allow of effectual external pressure, nothing further is
-requisite: the pressure being applied, the bleeding is stopped at once:
-should the situation of the vessel place it beyond the reach of external
-pressure, it is necessary to cut down upon it, and to secure it by the
-application of a ligature. Parè may be pardoned for supposing that he
-was led to the discovery of this invaluable remedy by inspiration of the
-Deity. By means of it the most formidable operations may be undertaken
-with the utmost confidence, because the wounded vessels can be secured
-the moment they are cut: by the same means the most frightful
-hemorrhages may be effectually stopped: and even when the bleeding is so
-violent as to threaten immediate death, it may often be averted by the
-simple expedient of placing the finger upon the wounded vessel, until
-there is time to tie it. But it is obvious that none of these expedients
-can be employed, and that these bleedings can neither be checked at the
-moment, nor permanently stopped, without such a knowledge of the course
-of the trunks and branches of vessels, as can be acquired only by the
-study of anatomy.
-
-The success of amputation is closely connected with the knowledge of the
-means of stopping hemorrhage. Not to amputate, is often to abandon the
-patient to a certain and miserable death. And all that the surgeon
-formerly did, was to watch the progress of that death: he had no power
-to stop or even to retard it. The fate of sir Philip Sidney is a
-melancholy illustration of this truth. This noble-minded man, the light
-and glory of his age, was cut off in the bloom of manhood, and the midst
-of his usefulness, by the wound of a musket bullet in his left leg, a
-little above the knee, “when extraction of the ball, or amputation of
-the limb,” says his biographer, “would have saved his inestimable life:
-but the surgeons and physicians were unwilling to practice the one, and
-knew not how to perform the other. He was variously tormented by a
-number of surgeons and physicians for three weeks.” Amputation indeed
-was never attempted except where mortification had itself half performed
-the operation. The just apprehension of an hemorrhage which there was no
-adequate means of stopping, checked the hand of the boldest surgeon, and
-quailed the courage of the most daring patient--and if ever the
-operation was resorted to, it almost always proved fatal: the patient
-generally expired, according to the expression of Celsus, “_in ipso
-opere_.” How could it be otherwise? The surgeon cut through the flesh of
-his patient with a red hot knife: this was his only means of stopping
-the hemorrhage: by this expedient he sought to convert the whole surface
-of the stump into an eschar: but this operation, painful in its
-execution, and terrible in its consequences, when it even appeared to
-succeed, succeeded only for a few days; for the bleeding generally
-returned and proved fatal as soon as the sloughs or dead parts became
-loose. Plunging the stump into boiling oil, into boiling turpentine,
-into boiling pitch, for all these means were used, was attended with no
-happier result, and after unspeakable suffering, almost every patient
-perished. In the manner in which amputation is performed at present, not
-more than one person in twenty loses his life in consequence of the
-operation, even taking into the account all the cases in which it is
-practised in hospitals. In private practice, where many circumstances
-favour its success, it is computed that 95 persons out of 100 recover
-from it, when it is performed at a proper time, and in a proper manner.
-It seems impossible to exhibit a more striking illustration of the great
-value of anatomical knowledge.
-
-But if there be any disease which, from the frequency of its occurrence,
-from the variety of its forms, from the difficulty of discriminating
-between it, and other maladies, and from the danger attendant on almost
-all its varieties, requires a combination of the most minute
-investigation, with the most accurate anatomical knowledge, it is that
-of hernia. This disease consists of a protrusion of some of the viscera
-of the abdomen, from the cavity in which they are naturally contained,
-into a preternatural bag, composed of the portion of the peritoneum (the
-membrane which lines the abdomen) which is pushed before them. It is
-computed that one sixteenth of the human race are afflicted with this
-malady. It is sometimes merely an inconvenient complaint, attended with
-no evil consequences whatever: but there is no form of this disease,
-which is not liable to be suddenly changed, and by slight causes, from a
-perfectly innocent state, into a condition which may prove fatal in a
-few hours. The disease itself occurs in numerous situations; it may be
-confounded with various diseases; it may exist in the most diversified
-states; it may require, without the loss of a single moment, a most
-important and delicate operation; and it may appear to demand this
-operation, while the performance of it may really be not only useless,
-but highly pernicious.
-
-The danger of hernia depends on its passing into that state which is
-technically termed strangulation. When a protruded intestine suffers
-such a degree of pressure, as to occasion a total obstruction to the
-passage of its contents, it is said to be strangulated. The consequence
-of pressure thus producing strangulation is, the excitement of
-inflammation: this inflammation must inevitably prove fatal unless the
-pressure be promptly removed. In most cases this can be effected only by
-the operation. Two things, then, are indispensable: first, the ability
-to ascertain that the symptoms are really produced by pressure, that is,
-to distinguish the disease from the affections which resemble it; and
-secondly, when this is effected, to perform the operation with
-promptitude and success. The distinction of strangulated hernia from
-affections which resemble it, often requires the most exact knowledge
-and the most minute investigation. The intestine included in a hernial
-sac may be merely affected with colic, and thus give rise to the
-appearance of strangulation. It may be in a state of irritation,
-produced, for example, by unusual fatigue; and from this cause may be
-attacked with the symptoms of inflammation. Inflammation may be excited
-in the intestine, by the common causes of inflammation, which the hernia
-may have no share in inducing, and of which it may not even participate.
-Were this case mistaken, and the operation performed, it would not only
-be useless, but pernicious: while the attention of the practitioner
-would be diverted from the real nature of the malady; the prompt and
-vigorous application of the remedies which alone could save the patient
-would be neglected, and he would probably perish. On the other hand, a
-very small portion of intestine may become strangulated, and urgently
-require the operation. But there maybe no tumor; all the symptoms may be
-those, and, on a superficial examination, only those, of inflammation of
-the bowels. Were the real nature of this case mistaken, death would be
-inevitable. Nothing is more common than fatal errors of this kind. It is
-only a few months ago, that a physician was called in haste to a person
-who was said to be dying of inflammation of the bowels. Before he
-reached the house the man was dead. He had been ill only three days. On
-looking at the abdomen, there was a manifest hernia; the first glance
-was sufficient to ascertain the fact. The practitioner in attendance had
-known nothing of the matter; he had never suspected the real nature of
-the disease, and had made no inquiry which could have led to the
-detection of it. Here was a case which might probably have been saved,
-but for the criminal ignorance and inattention of the practitioner.
-Whenever there are symptoms of inflammation of the bowels, examination
-of the abdomen is indispensable: and the life of the patient will often
-depend on the care and accuracy with which the investigation is made.
-
-But it is possible that inflammation may attack the parts included in
-the hernial sac, without arising from the hernia itself. The
-inflammation may be produced by the common causes of inflammation: there
-may be no pressure: there may be no strangulation: the swelling may be
-the seat, not the cause of the disease. In this case, too, the operation
-would be both useless and pernicious. Now all these are diversities
-which it is of the highest importance to discriminate. In some of them
-life depends on the clearness, accuracy, and promptitude, with which the
-discrimination is made. Promptitude is of no less consequence than
-accuracy. If the decision be not formed and acted on at once, it will be
-of no avail. The rapidity of the progress of this disease is often
-frightful. We have mentioned a case in which it was fatal in three days,
-but it not unfrequently terminates fatally in less than twenty-four
-hours. Sir Astley Cooper mentions a case in which the patient was dead
-in eight hours after the commencement of the disease. Larrey has
-recorded the case of a soldier in whom a hernia took place, which was
-strangulated immediately. He was brought to the “ambulance” instantly,
-and perished in two hours with gangrene of the part, and of the
-abdominal viscera. This was the second instance which had occurred to
-this surgeon of a rapidity thus appalling. What clearness of judgment,
-what accuracy of knowledge, what promptitude of decision, are necessary
-to treat such a disease with any chance of success!
-
-The moment that a case is ascertained to be strangulated hernia, an
-attempt must be made to liberate the parts from the stricture, and to
-replace them in their natural situation. This is first attempted by the
-hand, and the operation is technically termed the _taxis_. The patient
-must be placed in a particular position; pressure must be made in a
-particular direction; it is impossible to ascertain either, without an
-accurate knowledge of the structure of the parts. If pressure be made in
-a wrong direction, and in a rough and unscientific manner, the organs
-protruded instead of being urged through the proper opening are bruised
-against the parts which oppose their return. Many cases are on record,
-in which gangrene and even rupture of the intestine have been occasioned
-in this manner. When the parts cannot be returned by the hand, assisted
-by those remedies which experience has proved to be beneficial, the
-operation must be performed without the delay of a moment. To its proper
-performance two things are necessary. First, a minute anatomical
-knowledge of the various and complicated parts which are implicated in
-it; and secondly, a steady, firm, and delicate command of the knife. In
-the first place, the integuments must be divided; the cellular substance
-which intervenes between the skin and the hernial sac must be removed
-layer by layer with the knife and the dissecting forceps; the sac itself
-must be opened: this part of the operation must be performed with the
-most extreme caution: the sac being laid open, the protruded organs are
-now exposed to view. The operator must next ascertain the exact point
-where the stricture exists; having discovered its seat, he must make his
-incision with a particular instrument--in a certain direction--to a
-definite extent. On account of the nature of the parts implicated in the
-operation, and the proximity of important vessels, life depends on an
-exact knowledge and a precise and delicate attention to all these
-circumstances. How can this knowledge be obtained, how can this
-dexterity be acquired without a profound acquaintance with anatomy, and
-how can this be acquired without frequent and laborious dissection? The
-eye must become familiar with the appearance of the integuments, with
-the appearance of the cellular substance beneath it, with the
-appearance of the hernial sac, and of the changes which it undergoes by
-disease; with the appearance of the various viscera contained in it, and
-of their changes; and the hand must pay that steady and prompt obedience
-to the judgment which nothing but knowledge and the consciousness of
-knowledge can command. Even this is not all. When the operation has been
-performed thus far with perfect skill and success, the most opposite
-measures are required according to the actual state of the organs
-contained in the sac. If they are agglutinated together--if portions of
-them are in a state of mortification, to return them into the cavity of
-the abdomen in that condition would in general be certain death.
-Preternatural adhesion must be removed; mortified portions must be cut
-away: but how can this possibly be done without an acquaintance with
-healthy and diseased structure, and how can this be obtained without
-dissecting the organs in a state of health and of disease?
-
-It has been stated that the progress of strangulated hernia to a fatal
-termination is often frightfully rapid; in certain cases to delay the
-operation, even for a very short period, is, therefore, to lose the only
-chance of success. But ignorant and half-informed surgeons are afraid to
-operate. They are conscious that the operation is one of immense
-importance: they know that in the hands of an operator ignorant of
-anatomy, it is one of extreme hazard: they therefore put off the time as
-long as possible: they have recourse to every expedient: they resort to
-every thing but the only efficient remedy, and when at last they are
-compelled by a secret sense of shame to try that, it is too late. All
-the best practical surgeons express themselves in the strongest language
-on the importance of performing the operation early, if it be performed
-at all. On this point there is a perfect accordance between the most
-celebrated practitioners on the continent, and the great surgeons of our
-own country: all represent, in many parts of their writings, the
-dangerous and fatal effects of delay. Mr. Hey in his Practical
-Observations, states that when he first began practice, he considered
-the operation as the last resource, and only to be employed when the
-danger appeared imminent. “By this dilatory mode of practice,” says he,
-“I lost three patients in five, upon whom the operation was performed.
-Having more experience of the urgency of the disease, I made it my
-custom, when called to a patient who had laboured two or three days
-under the disease, to wait only about two hours, that I might try the
-effect of bleeding (if that evacuation was not forbidden by some
-peculiar circumstance of the case) and the tobacco clyster. In this mode
-of practice I lost about two patients in nine, upon whom I operated.
-This comparison is drawn from cases nearly similar, leaving out of the
-account those cases in which gangrene of the intestine had taken place.
-I have now, at the time of writing this, performed the operation
-thirty-five times; and have often had occasion to lament that I
-performed it too late, but never that I had performed it too soon.”
-
-These observations are sufficient to show the importance of anatomy in
-certain surgical diseases. The state of medical opinion from the
-earliest ages to the present time, furnishes a most instructive proof of
-its necessity to the detection and cure of disease in general. The
-doctrines of the father of physic were in the highest degree vague and
-unmeaning. Every thing is resolved by Hippocrates into a general
-principle, which he terms nature; and to which he ascribes intelligence;
-which he clothes with the attribute of justice; and which he represents
-as possessing virtues and powers which he says are her servants, and by
-means of which she performs all her operations in the bodies of animals,
-distributes the blood, spirits, and heat, through all the parts of the
-body, and imparts to them life and sensation. He states that the manner
-in which she acts, is by attracting what is good or agreeable to each
-species, and retaining, preparing, and changing it: or, on the other
-hand, by rejecting whatever is superfluous or hurtful, after she has
-separated it from the good. This is the foundation of the doctrine of
-depuration, concoction, and crisis in fevers, so much insisted on by him
-and by other physicians after him; but when he explains what he means by
-nature, he resolves it into heat, which he says appears to have
-something immortal in it.
-
-The great opponent of Hippocrates was Asclepiades. He asserted that
-matter, considered in itself, is of an unchangeable nature: that all
-perceptible bodies are composed of a number of small ones, termed
-corpuscles, between which there are interspersed an infinity of small
-spaces totally void of matter: that the soul itself is composed of these
-corpuscles: that what is called nature is nothing more than matter and
-motion: that Hippocrates knew not what he said when he spoke of nature
-as an intelligent being, and ascribed to her various qualities and
-virtues: that the corpuscles, of which all bodies are composed, are of
-different figures, and consist of different assemblages: that all bodies
-contain numerous pores, or interstices, which are of different sizes:
-that the human body, like all other bodies, possesses pores peculiar to
-itself: that these pores are larger or smaller, according as the
-corpuscles which pass through them differ in magnitude: that the blood
-consists of the largest and the spirits and the heat of the smallest. On
-these principles Asclepiades founded his theory of medicine. He
-maintains that, as long as the corpuscles are freely received by the
-pores, the body remains in its natural state: that, on the contrary, as
-soon as any obstacle obstructs their passage, it begins to recede from
-that state: that, therefore, health depends on the just proportion
-between these pores and corpuscles: that, on the contrary, disease
-proceeds from a disproportion between them: that the most usual obstacle
-arises from a retention of some of the corpuscles in their ordinary
-passages, where they arrive in too large a number, or are of irregular
-figures, or move too fast or proceed too slow: that phrensies,
-lethargies, pleurisies, burning fevers, for example, are occasioned by
-these corpuscles stopping of their own accord: that pain is produced by
-the stagnation of the largest of all these corpuscles, of which the
-blood consists: that, on the contrary, deliriums, languors,
-extenuations, leanness and dropsies derive their origin from a bad state
-of the pores, which are too much relaxed, or opened: that dropsy, in
-particular, proceeds from the flesh being perforated with various small
-holes which convert the nourishment received into them into water; that
-hunger is occasioned by an opening of the large pores of the stomach and
-belly: that thirst arises from an opening of the small pores: that
-intermittent fevers have the same origin: that quotidian fever is
-produced by a retention of the largest corpuscles; tertian fever by a
-retention of corpuscles somewhat smaller; and quartan fever by a
-retention of the smallest corpuscles of all.
-
-Galen maintained that the animal body is composed of three principles,
-namely, the solids, the humours, and the spirits: that the solid parts
-consist of similar and organic: that the humours are four in number,
-namely, the blood, the phlegm, the yellow bile, and the black bile: that
-the spirits are of three kinds, namely, the vital, the animal, and the
-natural; that the vital spirit is a subtle vapour which arises from the
-blood, and which derives its origin from the liver, the organ of
-sanguification: that the spirits, thus formed, are conveyed to the
-heart, where, in conjunction with the air drawn into the lungs by
-respiration, they become the matter of the second species, namely, of
-the vital spirits; that in their turn the vital spirits are changed into
-the animal in the brain, and so on.
-
-At last came Paracelsus, who was believed to have discovered the elixir
-of life, and who is the very prince of charlatans. He delivered a course
-of lectures on the theory and practice of physic at the University of
-Basle, which he commenced, by burning the works of Galen and Avicenna in
-the presence of his auditory. He assured his hearers that his
-shoe-latchets had more knowledge than both these illustrious authors put
-together: that all the academies in the world had not so much experience
-as his beard; and that the hair on the back of his neck was more learned
-than the whole tribe of authors. It was fitting that a person of such
-splendid pretensions should have a magnificent name. He, therefore,
-called himself PHILIPPUS AUREOLUS THEOPHRASTUS PARACELCUS BOMBAST VON
-HOHENHEIM. He was a great chemist, and, like other chemists, he was a
-little too apt to carry into other sciences “the smoke and tarnish of
-the furnace.” He conceived that the elements of the living system were
-the same as those of his laboratory, and that sulphur, salt, and
-quicksilver were the constituents of organised bodies. He taught that
-these constituents were combined by chemical operations: that their
-relations were governed by Archeus, a demon, who performed the part of
-alchemist in the stomach, who separated the poisonous from the nutritive
-part of the food, and who communicated the tincture by which the food
-became capable of assimilation: that this governor of the stomach, this
-_spiritus vitæ_, this astral body of man, was the immediate cause of all
-diseases and the chief agent in their cure: that each member of the body
-had its peculiar stomach, by which the work of secretion was effected:
-that diseases were produced by certain influences, of which there were
-five in particular, viz. _ens estrale_, _ens veneni_, _ens naturale_,
-_ens spirituale_, and _ens deale_; that when the Archeus was sick,
-putrescence was occasioned, and that either _localiter_ or
-_emunctorialiter_, &c. &c.
-
-It would be leading to a detail which is incompatible with our present
-purpose to follow these speculations, or to give an account of the
-doctrines of the mechanical physicians, who believed that every
-operation of the animal economy was explained by comparing it to a
-system of ropes, levers, and pulleys, united with a number of rigid
-tubes of different lengths and diameters, containing fluids which, from
-variations in their impelling causes, moved with different degrees of
-velocity: or of the chemical physicians, whose manner of theorizing and
-investigating would have qualified them better for the occupation of the
-brewer or of the distiller than for that of the physician. All these
-speculations are idle fancies, without any evidence whatever to support
-them; and it has been argued that, for this very reason, they must have
-been without any practical result, and that, therefore, if they were
-productive of no benefit, they were, at least, innoxious. No opinion can
-be more false or pernicious. These wretched theories not only
-pre-occupied the mind, prevented it from observing the real phenomena of
-health and of disease, and the actual effect of the remedies which were
-employed, and thus put an effectual stop to the progress of the science:
-but they were productive of the most direct and serious evils. It is no
-less true in medicine than in philosophy and morals, that there is no
-such thing as innoxious error; that men’s opinions invariably influence
-their conduct; and that physicians, like other men, act as they think.
-Asclepiades, whose mind was full of corpuscles and interstices, was
-intent on finding suitable remedies, which he discovered in gestation,
-friction, and the use of wine. By various exercises he proposed to
-render the pores more open, and to make the juices and corpuscles, the
-retention of which causes disease, to pass more freely. Hence he used
-gestation from the very beginning of the most burning fevers. He laid it
-down as a maxim that one fever was to be cured by another; that the
-strength of the patient was to be exhausted by making him watch and
-endure thirst to such a degree that for the first two days of the
-disorder he would not allow them to cool their mouths with a drop of
-water. Abernethy’s regulated diet is luxurious living compared to his
-plan of abstinence. For the three first days he allowed his patients no
-aliment whatever; on the fourth, he so far relented as to give to some
-of them a small portion of food; but from others he absolutely withheld
-all nourishment till the seventh day. And this is the gentleman who laid
-it down as a maxim that all diseases are to be cured “_Tutò, celeriter
-et jucunde_.” To be sure he was a believer in the doctrine of
-compensation; and in the latter stage of their diseases endeavoured to
-recompence his patients for the privations he caused them to endure in
-the beginning of their illness. Celsus observes that though he treated
-his patients like a butcher during the first days of the disorder, he
-afterwards indulged them so far as to give directions for making their
-beds in the softest manner. He allowed them abundance of wine which he
-gave freely in all fevers; he did not forbid it even to those afflicted
-with phrenzy; nay, he ordered them to drink it till they were
-intoxicated; for, said he, it is absolutely necessary that persons who
-labour under phrenzy should sleep, and wine has a narcotic quality. To
-lethargic patients he prescribed it with great freedom, but with the
-opposite purpose of rousing them from their stupor. His great remedy in
-dropsy was friction, which, of course, he employed to open the pores.
-With the same view he enjoined active exercise to the sick; but what is
-a little extraordinary, he denied it to those in health.
-
-Erisistratus, who was a great speculator, and whose theories had the
-most important influence on his practice, banished blood-letting
-altogether from medicine, for the following notable reasons: because, he
-says, we cannot always see the vein we intend to open; because we are
-not sure we may not open an artery instead of a vein; because we cannot
-ascertain the true quantity to be taken; because if we take too little,
-the intention is not answered; if too much, we may destroy the patient:
-and because the evacuation of the venous blood is succeeded by that of
-the spirits, which thus pass from the arteries into the veins;
-wherefore, blood-letting ought never to be used as a remedy in disease.
-Yet, though he was thus cautious in abstracting blood, it must not be
-supposed that he was not a sufficiently bold practitioner. In tumour of
-the liver, he hesitated not to cut open the abdomen, and to apply his
-medicines immediately to the diseased organ; but though he took such
-liberties with the liver, he regarded with the greatest apprehension the
-operation of tapping in dropsy of the abdomen: because, said he, the
-waters being evacuated, the liver which is inflamed and become hard like
-a stone, is more pressed by the adjacent parts, which the waters kept at
-a distance from it, whence the patient dies.
-
-One physician conceived that gout originated from an effervescence of
-the synovia of the joints with the vitriolated blood: whence he
-recommended alcohol for its cure: a remedy for which the court of
-aldermen ought to have voted him a medal. A more ancient practitioner
-who believed that the finger of St. Blasius was very efficacious “for
-removing a bone which sticks in the throat,” maintained that gout was
-the “grand drier,” and prescribed a remedy for it which the patient was
-to use for a whole year, and to observe the following diet each month:
-in September he must eat and drink milk; in October he must eat garlic;
-in November he is to abstain from bathing; in December he must eat no
-cabbage; in January he is to take a glass of pure wine in the morning;
-in February to eat no beef; in March to mix several things both in
-eatables and drinkables; in April not to eat horse-radish; nor in May
-the fish called Polypus; in June he is to drink cold water in a morning;
-in July to avoid venery; and lastly, in August to eat no mallows.
-
-A third physician deduced all diseases from inspissation of the fluids;
-hence he attached the highest importance to diluent drinks, and
-believed that tea, especially, is a sovereign remedy in almost every
-disease to which the human frame is subject: “tea,” says Bentakoe, who
-is loudest in his praises of this panacea, and who, as Blumenback
-observes, ‘deserved to have been pensioned by the East India Company for
-his services,’ “tea is the best, nay, the only remedy for correcting
-viscidity of the blood, the source of all diseases, and for dissipating
-the acid of the stomach, as it contains a fine oleaginous volatile salt,
-and certain subtle spirits which are analogous in their nature to the
-animal spirits. Tea fortifies the memory and all the intellectual
-faculties: it will therefore furnish the most effectual means of
-improving physical education. Against fever there is no better remedy
-than forty or fifty cups of tea swallowed immediately after one another;
-the slime of the pancreas is thus carried off.”
-
-Another physician derived all diseases from a redundancy or deficiency
-of fire or water. He maintained that where the water predominated the
-fluids became viscid, and that hence arose intermittent fevers and
-anthritic complaints. His remedies are in strict conformity to his
-theory. These diseases are to be cured by volatile salts, which abound
-with fiery particles; venesection in any case is highly pernicious;
-these fiery medicines are the only efficacious remedies, and are to be
-employed even in diseases of the most inflammatory nature. “Life,” says
-Dr. Brown, “is a forced state:” it is a flame kept alive by excitement;
-every thing stimulates; some substances too violently; others not
-sufficiently; there are thus too kinds of debility, indirect and direct,
-and to one or other of these causes must be referred the origin of all
-diseases. According to this doctrine the mode of cure is simple: we have
-nothing to do but to supply, to moderate, or to abstract stimuli. Typhus
-fever, in this system, is a disease of extreme debility: we must
-therefore give the strongest stimulants. Consumption and apoplexy,
-also, are diseases of debility; of course the remedies are active
-stimulants. Humanity shudders, and with reason, at the application of
-such doctrines to practice. And not less destitute of reason, and not
-less dangerous in practice, is the great doctrine of debility
-promulgated by Cullen. This celebrated professor taught that the
-circumstance which invariably characterized fever, that which
-constituted its essence, was debility. The inference was obvious, that,
-above all things, the strength must be supported. The consequence was,
-that blood-letting was neglected, and that bark and wine were given in
-immense quantities, in cases in which intense inflammation existed. The
-practice was in the highest degree mortal; the number of persons who
-have perished in consequence of this doctrine is incalculable. So far
-then is it from being true that medical theories are of no practical
-importance, that there is the closest possible connection between the
-speculations of the physician in his closet, and the measures which he
-adopts at the bed side of his patient. Truth to him is a benignant power
-which stops the progress of disease, protracts the duration of life, and
-mitigates the suffering it may be unable to remove: error is a fearfully
-active and tremendously potent principle. There is not a medical
-prejudice which has not slain its thousands, nor a false theory which
-has not immolated its tens of thousands. The system of medicine and
-surgery which is established in any country, has a greater influence
-over the lives of its inhabitants than the epidemic diseases produced by
-its climate, or the decisions of its government concerning peace and
-war. The devastations of the yellow fever will bear no comparison with
-the ravages committed by the Brunonian system; and the slaughter of the
-field of Waterloo counts not of victims, a tithe of the number of which
-the Cullenian doctrine of debility can justly boast. Anatomy alone will
-not teach a physician to think, much less to think justly; but it will
-give him the elements of thinking; it will furnish him with the means of
-correcting his errors; it will certainly save him from some delusions,
-and will afford to the public the best shield against his ignorance,
-which may be fatal, and against his presumption, which may be
-devastating.
-
-We have entered into this minute detail at the hazard, we are aware, of
-tiring the reader; but in the hope of leaving on his mind a more
-distinct impression of the importance of anatomical knowledge than could
-possibly be produced by a mere allusion to the circumstances which have
-been explained. In all ages formidable obstacles have opposed the
-prosecution of anatomical investigations. Among these, without doubt,
-the most powerful has its source in a feeling which is natural to the
-heart of man. The sweetest, the most sacred associations are
-indissolubly connected with the person of those we love. It is with the
-corporeal frame that our senses have been familiar: it is that on which
-we have gazed with rapture: it is that which has so often been the
-medium of conveying to our hearts the thrill of extacy. We cannot
-separate the idea of the peculiarities and actions of a friend from the
-idea of his person. It is for this reason that “every thing which has
-been associated with him acquires a value from that consideration; his
-ring, his watch, his books, and his habitation. The value of these as
-having been his is not merely fictitious; they have an empire over my
-mind; they can make me happy or unhappy; they can torture and they can
-tranquillize; they can purify my sentiments and make me similar to the
-man I love; they possess the virtue which the Indian is said to
-attribute to the spoils of him he kills, and inspire me with the powers,
-the feelings, and the heart of their preceding master.” It is nothing,
-the survivor may justly say, to tell me, when disease has completed its
-work, and death has seized its prey, that that body, with which are
-connected so many delightful associations, is a senseless mass of
-matter: that it is no longer my friend, that the spirit which animated
-it and rendered it lovely to my sight and dear to my affections, is
-gone. I know that it is gone. I know that I never more shall see the
-light of intelligence brighten that countenance, nor benevolence beam in
-that eye, nor the voice of affection sound from those lips: that which I
-loved, and which loved me, is not here: but here are still the features
-of my friend: this is his form, and the very particles of matter which
-compose this dull mass, a few hours ago were a real part of him, and I
-cannot separate them, in my imagination, from him. And I approach them
-with the profounder reverence; I gaze upon them with the deeper
-affection because they are all that remain to me. I would give all that
-I possess to purchase the art of preserving the wholesome character and
-rosy hue of this form that it might be my companion still: but this is
-impossible: I cannot detain it from the tomb: but when I have “cast a
-heap of mould upon the person of my friend and taken the cold earth for
-its keeper,” I visit the spot in which it is deposited with awe: it is
-sacred to my imagination: it is dear to my heart. There is a real and
-deep foundation for these feelings in human nature: they arise
-spontaneously in the bosom of man, and we see their expression and their
-power in the customs of all nations, savage as well as civilized, and in
-the conduct of all men, the most ignorant and uncultivated no less than
-the most intelligent and refined. It has been the policy of society to
-foster these sentiments. It has been conceived that the sanctity which
-attaches to the dead, is reflected back in a profounder feeling of
-respect for the living; that the solemnity with which death is regarded
-elevates, in the general estimation, the value of life; and that he who
-cannot approach the mortal remains of a fellow creature without an
-emotion of awe, must regard with horror every thing which places in
-danger the life of a human being. Religion has contributed indirectly,
-but powerfully, to the strength and perpetuity of these impressions; and
-superstition has availed herself of them to play her antics and to
-accomplish her base and malignant purposes. It is not the eradication of
-these feelings that can be desired, but their control: it is not the
-extinction of these natural and useful emotions that is pleaded for, but
-that they should give way to higher considerations when these exist.
-Veneration for the dead is connected with the noblest and sweetest
-sympathies of our nature: but the promotion of the happiness of the
-living is a duty from which we can never be exonerated.
-
-In ancient times the voice of reason could not be heard. Superstition,
-and customs founded on superstition, excited an influence which was
-neither to be resisted nor evaded. Dissection was then regarded with
-horror. In the warm countries of the East the pursuit must have been
-highly offensive and even dangerous, and it was absolutely incompatible
-with the notions and ceremonies universally prevalent in those days. The
-Jewish tenet of pollution must have formed an insuperable obstacle to
-the cultivation of anatomy amongst that people. By the Egyptians every
-one who cut open a dead body was regarded with inexpressible horror. The
-Grecian philosophers so far overcame the prejudice as occasionally to
-engage in the pursuit, and the first dissection on record was one made
-by Democritus of Abdera, the friend of Hippocrates, in order to discover
-the course of the bile. The Romans contributed nothing to the progress
-of the art: they were content with propitiating the Deities who presided
-over health and disease. They erected on the Palatine Mount a temple to
-the goddess Febris, whom they worshipped from a dread of her power. They
-also sacrificed to the goddess Ossipaga, who, it seems, presided over
-the growth of the bones, and to another styled Carna, who took care of
-the viscera, and to whom they offered bean-broth, and bacon, because
-these were the most nutritious articles of diet. The Arabians adopted
-the Jewish notion of pollution, and were thus prohibited by the tenets
-of their religion from practising dissection. Abdollaliph, who
-flourished about the year 1200, a man of learning and a teacher of
-anatomy, never saw and never thought of a human dissection. In order to
-examine and demonstrate the bones, he took his students to burying
-grounds and earnestly recommended them, instead of reading books, to
-adopt that method of study: yet he seems to have had no conception that
-the dissection of a recent subject might be a still better method of
-learning. Christians were equally hostile to dissection. Pope Boniface
-the 8th issued a bull prohibiting even the maceration and preparation of
-skeletons. The priests were the only physicians, and so greatly did they
-abuse the office they assumed, that the evil at length became too
-intolerable to be borne. The church itself was obliged to prohibit the
-priesthood from interfering with the practice of medicine. All monks and
-canons who applied themselves to physic, were threatened with severe
-penalties, and all bishops, abbots, and priors who connived at their
-misconduct were ordered to be suspended from their ecclesiastical
-functions. But it was not till three hundred years after this
-interdiction, that, by a special bull which permitted physicians to
-marry, their complete separation from the clergy was effected.
-
-In the 14th century, Mundinus, professor at Bologna, astonished the
-world by the public dissection of two human bodies. In the 15th century,
-Leonardo da Vinci contributed essentially to the progress of the art, by
-the introduction of anatomical plates which were admirably executed. In
-the 16th century, the Emperor, Charles the 5th, ordered a consultation
-to be held by the divines of Salamanca, to determine whether it was
-lawful, in point of conscience, to dissect a dead body in order to learn
-its structure. In the 17th century, Cortesius, professor of anatomy at
-Bologna, and afterwards professor of medicine at Messina, had long begun
-a treatise on practical anatomy which he had an earnest desire to
-finish, but so great was the difficulty of prosecuting the study even
-in Italy, that in 24 years he could only twice procure an opportunity
-of dissecting a human body, and even then with difficulty and in a
-hurry; whereas, he had expected to have done so, he says, once every
-year, according to the custom of the famous academies of Italy. In
-Muscovy, until very lately, both anatomy and the use of skeletons were
-positively forbidden; the first as inhuman, and the latter as
-subservient to witchcraft. Even the illustrious Luther was so biassed by
-the prejudices of his age, that he ascribed the majority of diseases to
-the arts of the devil, and found great fault with physicians when they
-attempted to account for them by natural causes. England acquired the
-bad fame of being the country of witches, and opposed almost insuperable
-obstacles to the cultivation of anatomy. Even at present the prejudices
-of the people on this subject are violent and deeply-rooted. The measure
-of that violence may be estimated by the degree of abhorrence with which
-they regard those persons who are employed to procure the subjects
-necessary for dissection. In this country there is no other method of
-obtaining subjects but that of exhumation: aversion to this employment
-may be pardoned: dislike to the persons who engage in it is natural, but
-to regard them with detestation, to exult in their punishment, to
-determine for themselves its nature and measure, and to endeavour to
-assume the power of inflicting it with their own hands, is absurd.
-Magistrates have too often fostered the prejudices of the people, and
-afforded them the means of executing their vengeance on the objects of
-their aversion. The press, with a few honourable exceptions, has
-uniformly allied itself with the ignorance and violence of the vulgar,
-and has done every thing in its power to inflame the passions which it
-was its duty to endeavour to soothe. It is notorious that the winter
-before last there was scarcely a week in which many of the papers did
-not contain the most exaggerated and disgusting statements: the appetite
-which could be gratified with such representations was sufficiently
-degraded: but still more base was the servility which could pander to
-it.
-
-As one among many of the cases which illustrate this bad feeling, we may
-refer to that of Samuel Clark who was indicted at the Essex Quarter
-Sessions, in January, 1824, for feloniously stealing at Little Leighs,
-on the 26th of December, a woman’s shift, a bed-gown, a night-cap, and a
-pair of cotton stockings, the property of James Chinnery. It appeared in
-evidence, that a young woman the wife of a labouring man named James
-Chinnery, had been buried in Little Leighs Church-yard, on Sunday the
-21st of December. Previous to her death she expressed a wish to be
-interred in a night-cap, shift, bed-gown and cotton stockings, and her
-request had been complied with. The body was discovered on the morning
-of the 26th, in a ditch near the church-yard. A few rods from this spot
-was found a horse yoked to a chaise cart and tied to a tree. It appeared
-that “the box under the chaise cart was calculated to hold a couple of
-human bodies, when rolled up; and on examining it, a most offensive
-odour proceeded from it, as if it had been recently used in the
-prisoner’s _unhallowed_ occupation.” The prisoner owned this horse and
-cart, and this is the whole of the evidence, at least, as stated in the
-report of the trial, which implicated him in the robbery of the grave.
-Under these circumstances, the counsel for the prisoner submitted to the
-Court that there was no case to go to the jury on three grounds:--first,
-that there was no proof of any asportation of the articles alleged to
-have been stolen: secondly, that supposing the asportavit made out, the
-prisoner could not be convicted of this offence, unless it was manifest
-that he had a felonious intention of taking the clothes and converting
-them to his own use; and thirdly, that, at all events, there was no
-evidence upon which the jury could safely be called upon to act, so as
-to implicate him in the alleged offence. The counsel for the prosecution
-in answer urged, first, that the finding of the body naked, after proof
-that it had been interred in the clothes mentioned in the evidence, was
-sufficient proof of asportation: and that even stripping the body
-without removing the clothes out of the grave, was, in law, enough to
-support the indictment: secondly, that although the primary intention of
-the prisoner might be, to steal the body only, yet, if the clothes were
-taken, the law would construe them to have been feloniously taken: that
-it might as well be said that although a man’s intention might be to
-steal a valuable jewel, yet it was no offence to take the casket in
-which it was contained: and thirdly, that whether the defendant was the
-party to whom guilt was imputed, was a question solely for the
-consideration of the jury. On the prisoner’s counsel insisting that his
-objections had not been answered, the Chairman overruled the two first
-objections, and then summed up the evidence, on which the jury, after
-deliberating a few minutes, found the prisoner _Guilty_. The verdict, it
-is recorded, _was received by the auditory with a general expression of
-pleasure_. The Court after animadverting in strong terms on the
-_abominable_ offence of which the prisoner had been found guilty, said
-they were determined that he should not have an opportunity of pursuing
-his _odious_ trade in this country, at least for some years, and
-_therefore_ sentenced him to be transported for seven years. The account
-of this case is taken from the report of the trial contained in the
-Globe and Traveller newspaper of Jan. 20, 1824; a paper honorably
-distinguished for its endeavours to enlighten the public mind on this
-subject, not to foster its prejudices.
-
-In this case there was no sufficient evidence to convict the prisoner of
-the alleged offence: even if that evidence had been perfectly
-satisfactory, the punishment inflicted was unjust: the circumstance
-essential to constitute the felony did not exist: the Chairman, with an
-ignorant and vulgar mind, stretched the law to gratify ignorant and
-vulgar prejudice: he relied upon the public feeling for protection in
-the illegal exertion of his power: he administered the law badly: he
-endeavoured to justify his conduct by loading the prisoner with odious
-epithets, and he did not miscalculate the feeling of his auditory: they
-witnessed the transaction “with a general feeling of pleasure.” This
-case exhibits but too faithfully, the spirit often displayed both by the
-magistracy and the people.
-
-Half a century ago there was in Scotland no difficulty in obtaining the
-subjects which were necessary to supply the schools of anatomy. The
-consequence was, that medicine and surgery suddenly assumed new
-life--started from the torpor in which they had been spell-bound--and
-made an immediate, and rapid, and brilliant progress. The new seminaries
-constantly sent into the world men of the most splendid abilities, at
-once demonstrating the excellence of the schools in which they were
-educated, and rendering them illustrious. Pupils flocked to them from
-all quarters of the globe, and they essentially contributed to that
-advancement of science which the present age has witnessed. In the 19th
-century the good people of Scotland, that intelligent, that cool and
-calculating, that most reasonable and thinking people, have thought
-proper to return to the worst feeling and the worst conduct of the
-darkest periods of antiquity. There is at present no offence whatever
-which seems to have such power to heat and to exalt into a kind of
-torrent the blood which usually flows so calmly and sluggishly in the
-veins of a Scotchman. The people of 1823 (to compare great things with
-small) emulate the spirit of those of their forefathers who “_were out
-in the forty-five_;” the object, to be sure, is somewhat different, but
-it is amusing to see the intensity and seriousness of the excitement.
-About twelve months ago an honest farmer of the name of Scott, who
-resides at Linlithgow, apprehended a poor wight who was pursuing his
-vocation, we presume, in the church-yard of that place; and this service
-appeared so meritorious to the people in his neighbourhood, that they
-absolutely presented him with a piece of plate. In the winter sessions
-of 1822-3, a body was discovered on its way to the lecture-room of an
-anatomist in Glasgow, and, in spite of the exertions of the police,
-aided by those of the military, this gentleman’s premises and their
-contents, which were valuable, were entirely destroyed by the mob. For
-some time after this achievement, it was necessary to station a military
-guard at the houses of all the medical professors in that city. In the
-spring circuit of the justiciary court last year at Stirling, while the
-judges were proceeding to the court, the procession was assaulted with
-missiles; several persons were injured, and it was necessary to call in
-the protection of a military force. The object of the mob was, to
-inflict summary punishment on a man who was about to be tried for the
-exhumation of a body. We happen to know that the most disgraceful
-proceedings were some time ago instituted in that town against a young
-gentleman of respectable family and connections, who was in fact
-expatriated, and whose prospects in life were entirely changed, if not
-ruined, because he had too much honour to implicate his instructors in a
-transaction which would have put them to inconvenience, and in which
-they had engaged from a desire faithfully to discharge their duty to
-their pupils. Within the last five years three men were lodged in the
-county gaol at Haddington, charged with a trespass in the church-yard of
-that town. So enraged was the mob against them, that an attempt was made
-to force the gaol in order to get at them. On their way to the court the
-men were again attacked, forced from the carriage, and severely maimed.
-After examination they were admitted to bail; but, when set at liberty,
-they were assailed with more violence than ever, and were nearly killed.
-On the 29th of June, 1823, being Sunday, a most extraordinary outrage
-was perpetrated in the streets of Edinburgh. A coach containing an empty
-coffin and two men, was observed proceeding along the south bridge. The
-people suspecting that it was intended to convey a body taken from some
-church-yard, seized the coach. It was with difficulty that the police
-protected the men from the assaults of the populace: the coach they had
-no power to preserve. The horses were taken from it, and together with
-the coffin, after having been trundled a mile and a half through the
-streets of the city, it was deliberately projected over the steep side
-of the mound, and smashed into a thousand pieces. The people following
-it to the bottom, kindled a fire with its fragments, and surrounded it
-like the savages in Robinson Crusoe, till it was entirely consumed. In
-this case there was no foundation for their suspicions. The coffin was
-intended to have conveyed to his house in Edinburgh the body of a
-physician who that morning had died in a cottage in the neighbourhood. A
-similar assault was some time ago made on two American gentlemen, who
-went to visit the Abbey of Linlithgow after nightfall. The churchyards
-of the “gude Scots” are now strictly guarded by men and dogs;
-watch-towers are erected within the grounds, and _mort-safes_ as they
-are called, that is to say, strong iron frames are deposited in the
-ground over the graves. These people sometimes declare that they will
-put an end to anatomy, and certainly they are succeeding in the
-accomplishment of this menace as rapidly as they can well desire. The
-average number of medical students in Edinburgh is 700 each session. For
-several years past the difficulty of procuring subjects in that place
-has been so great, that out of all that number, not more than 150 or 200
-have ever attempted to dissect; and even these have latterly been so
-opposed in their endeavours to prosecute their studies that many of them
-have left the place in disgust. We have been informed by a friend, that
-he alone was personally acquainted with twenty individuals who retired
-from it at the beginning of last session, and who went to pursue their
-studies at Dublin, and we know that vast numbers followed their example
-at the end of the winter course. The medical school at Edinburgh, in
-fact, is now subsisting entirely on its past reputation; in the course
-of a few years it will certainly be at an end, unless the system be
-changed. Let those who have the prosperity of the university at heart,
-and who have the power to protect it, consider this before it be too
-late: they may be assured it is no idle prediction; for we give them
-notice that it is at this moment the universal opinion and the current
-language of every well-informed medical man in England.
-
-An excellent system of anatomical plates, which has been well received
-by the profession, has lately been published by Mr. Lizars, a lecturer
-on anatomy and physiology, in Edinburgh. This gentleman states that he
-has been induced to undertake the work, in order to obviate the most
-fatal consequences to the public; as far, at least, as a reference to
-art, instead of nature is capable of obviating those consequences. He
-affirms, that the difficulty of obtaining instruction from nature has
-risen to such a pitch, owing to the extraordinary severity exercised by
-the legal authorities of the kingdom against persons employed in
-procuring subjects for dissection, as to threaten the ultimate
-destruction of medical and anatomical science. In his preface to the
-second part of his work, he apologizes to his readers for dividing one
-portion of it from another, with which it ought to have been connected;
-but states that he has been compelled to do so from the prejudices of
-the place, which prevented him for upwards of five months, from
-procuring a subject from which he might make his drawings. “In place of
-living,” he says, “in a civilized and enlightened period, we appear as
-if we had been thrown back some centuries into the dark ages of
-ignorance, bigotry, and superstition. Prejudices, worthy only of the
-multitude, have been conjured up and appealed to, in order to call forth
-popular indignation against those whose business it is to exhibit
-demonstratively the structure of the human body, and the functions of
-its different organs. The public journals, from a vicious propensity to
-pander to the vulgar appetite for excitement, have raked up and
-industriously circulated stories of the exhumation of dead bodies,
-tending to exasperate and inflame the passions of the mob; and persons,
-who, by their own showing, are friendly to the interests of science,
-have, in the excess of their zeal that bodies should remain undisturbed
-in their progress to decomposition, laboured to destroy in this country,
-that art, whose province it is, to free living bodies from the
-consequences inseparable from accident and disease. And, which is worst
-of all, the prejudices of the multitude have been confirmed and rendered
-inveterate by the proceedings in our courts of justice, which have
-visited with the punishment due only to felons, the unhappy persons
-necessarily employed in the present state of the law, in procuring
-subjects for the dissecting-room.”
-
-He then goes on to state that, until anatomy be publicly sanctioned in
-Edinburgh, the school of medicine there can never flourish; that, upon
-the present system, young men obtain a degree or a diploma after a year
-or two of grinding, that is, of learning by rote the answers to the
-questions which the examiners are in the habit of putting to the
-candidates; that ignorant of the very elements of their profession
-numbers of persons thus educated annually go to the East and West
-Indies, and to the army and navy, where they have the charge of hundreds
-of their suffering fellow creatures, to whom they are in fact the
-instruments of cruelty and murder. In the preface to the 4th Part, he
-adds, that when Part II. was published, in the early part of the
-session, he took occasion to express his sorrow for the degraded state
-of his profession, and the threatened ruin of the Medical School of his
-native place, owing to the scarcity of subjects: that, for doing this,
-he has incurred considerable censure; that he regrets that he has yet
-found no reason to alter his opinion, for the winter session is now
-near its conclusion, and, he candidly declares, that such has been the
-scarcity of material, that _no teacher of anatomy or surgery has been
-able either to follow the regular plan of his course, or to do his duty
-to his pupils_; the consequence of which has been, that many of the
-students have left the school in disgust, and gone either to Dublin or
-Paris; while a still greater number, deprived of the means of
-dissecting, have contented themselves with lectures or theories, and
-with grinding; and entered on the practice of their profession ignorant
-of its fundamental principles.
-
-Much of this opposition on the part of the people arises from the
-present mode of procuring subjects. Fortunately, there is in Great
-Britain no custom, no superstition, no law, and we may add, no prejudice
-against anatomy itself. There is even a general conviction of its
-necessity; there may be a feeling that it is a repulsive employment, but
-it is commonly acknowledged that it must not be neglected. The
-opposition which is made, is made not against anatomy, but against the
-practice of exhumation: and this is a practice which ought to be
-opposed. It is in the highest degree revolting; it would be disgraceful
-to a horde of savages; every feeling of the human heart rises up against
-it: so long as no other means of procuring bodies for dissection are
-provided, it must be tolerated; but, in itself, it is alike odious to
-the ignorant and the enlightened, to the most uncultivated and the most
-refined.
-
-But the capital objection to this practice is, that it necessarily
-creates a crime, and educates a race of criminals. Exhumation is
-forbidden by the law. It is, indeed, prohibited by no statute, either in
-England or in Scotland: in both it is an offence punishable at common
-law. There is a statute of James the First, which makes it felony to
-steal a dead body for the purpose of witchcraft; there is none against
-taking a body for the purpose of dissection. In the case of the King
-against Lynn (1788), the Court decided that the body being taken for the
-latter purpose, did not make it less an indictable offence; and that it
-is without doubt cognizable in a criminal court, because it is an act
-“highly indecent; at the bare idea of which nature revolts.” It is
-punishable, therefore, by fine or imprisonment, or both: in Scotland it
-is also punishable by whipping, and even by transportation.
-
-We expected better things of America. We cannot express our astonishment
-and indignation, when we found that the state of New York has actually
-made it felony to remove a dead body from the place of sepulture for the
-purpose of dissection, without providing in any other mode for the
-schools of anatomy. This is worse than any thing that exists in any
-other part of the world. If these pages should meet the eye of any of
-our American brethren, we intreat them to read with attention, the facts
-which have been stated in the former part of this pamphlet, and to
-consider with seriousness the mischief they are doing. It will not be
-believed in England, that such scenes can have been witnessed in
-America, as were actually exhibited there scarcely a month ago. To
-satisfy our readers, however, that we do not misrepresent the state of
-things in that country, we transcribe the following accounts from _The
-New York Evening Post_, of _May_ 20th:--“At the late Court of Sessions,
-Solomon Parmeli was indicted for a misdemeanor, in entering Potter’s
-Field, and removing the covers of two coffins deposited in a pit, and
-covered partly with earth. _The statute of this state making it a
-felony, to dig up or remove a dead human body with intent to dissect
-it_, did not embrace this case; because the prisoner had not dug up or
-removed the body. Mr. Schureman, the present keeper of Potter’s Field,
-suspected that some person had entered it for the purpose of removing
-the dead; and, after sending for two watchmen, and calling his faithful
-dog, he went to ascertain the fact. On arriving at the grave, he found
-his suspicion confirmed; and requested the person concealed in the pit,
-to come out and show himself: no answer being given, Mr. Schureman sent
-his dog into the pit, and in the twinkling of an eye a tall stout fellow
-made his appearance, and took to his heels across the field. The night
-being dark, he might have effected his escape had it not been for the
-sagacity and courage of the dog, who pursued him for some distance; but
-at last came up with him, seized and held him fast until the arrival of
-Mr. Schureman and the watchmen who secured him. The jury convicted the
-prisoner, and the Court sentenced him to six months’ imprisonment in the
-Penitentiary. _The young gentlemen attending the Medical School of this
-city will take warning by this man’s fate. They may rest assured, that
-the keeper of Potter’s Field will do his duty, and public justice will
-he executed on any man, whatever may be his condition in life, who is
-found violating the law, and the decency of christian burial!_” The same
-paper gives the following account of a transaction, which took place at
-Hartford, in Connecticut, May 17. “Yesterday morning, two ladies were
-taking a walk in the South burying ground, when they discovered a
-tape-string, and a piece of cloth, which upon examination was found to
-be the piece that was laced upon Miss Jane Benton’s face, who came to
-her death by drowning, and was buried a few days since. The ladies then
-went to the grave, and found that it had been disturbed--that she was
-taken out of her coffin, and a rope around her neck. The circumstance
-has produced great excitement in the public mind; and every one is on
-the alert to discover the perpetrators of this unfeeling, brutal act.
-_The citizens turned out in a body yesterday, and interred the corpse
-again._”
-
-These scenes are highly disgraceful, and disgraceful to all, though not
-_alike_ to all, parties. We do not blame the Americans for abolishing
-the practice of exhumation; but we blame them for stopping there. We
-maintain, that it is both absurd and criminal, to make this practice
-felony, without providing in some other method for the cultivation of
-anatomy.
-
-In Great Britain, the law against the practice of exhumation is not
-allowed to slumber. There may be other cases which have not come to our
-knowledge; but we have ascertained that there have been 14 convictions
-for England alone during the last year. The punishments inflicted have
-been imprisonment for various periods, with fines of different sums. The
-fines in general are heavy, considering the poverty of the offenders.
-Several persons are, at this moment, suffering these penalties; among
-others, there is now in the gaol of St. Albans, a man who was sentenced
-for this offence to two years’ imprisonment and a fine of £.20. The
-period of his confinement has expired some time; but he still remains in
-prison, on account of his inability to pay the fine. Since the passing
-of the new Vagrant Act, it has been the common practice to commit these
-offenders to hard labour for various periods. Very lately, two men,
-convicted of this offence, were sent to the Tread-Mill, in Cold Bath
-Fields; one of whom died in one month after his commitment. It is an
-error to suppose that these punishments operate to prevent exhumation;
-their only effect is to raise the price of subjects: a little reflection
-will show that they can have no other operation. At present, exhumation
-is the only method by which subjects for dissection can be procured; but
-subjects for this purpose must be procured; and be the difficulties what
-they may, will be procured: diseases will occur, operations must be
-performed, medical men must be educated, anatomy must be studied,
-dissections must go on. Unless some other means for affording a supply
-be adopted; whatever be the law or the popular feeling, neither
-magistrates, nor judges, nor juries, will, or can put an entire stop to
-the practice. It is one which, from the absolute necessity of the case,
-must be allowed. What is the consequence? So long as the practice of
-exhumation continues, a race of men must be trained up to violate the
-law. These men must go out in company for the purpose of nightly
-plunder, and plunder of the most odious kind, tending in a peculiar and
-most alarming measure to brutify the mind, and to eradicate every
-feeling and sentiment worthy of a man. This employment becomes a school
-in which men are trained for the commission of the most daring and
-inhuman crimes. Its operation is similar, but much worse than the
-nightly banding to violate the game laws, because there is something in
-the violation of the grave, which tends still more to degrade the
-character and to harden the heart. This offence is connived at, nay, it
-is rewarded; these men are absolutely paid to violate the law; and paid
-by men of reputation and influence in society. The transition is but too
-easy to the commission of other offences in the hope of similar
-connivance, if not of similar reward.
-
-It is an odious thing that the teachers of anatomy should be brought
-into contact with such men: that they should be obliged to employ them,
-and that they should even be in their power; which they are to such a
-degree, that they are obliged to bear with the wantonness of their
-tyranny and insult. All the clamour against these men, all the
-punishment inflicted on them, only operate to raise the premium on the
-repetition of their offence. This premium the teachers of anatomy are
-obliged to pay, which these men perfectly understand, who do not at all
-dislike the opposition which is made to their vocation. It gives them no
-unreasonable pretext for exorbitancy in their demands. In general they
-are men of infamous character; some of them are thieves, others are the
-companions and abettors of thieves. Almost all of them are extremely
-destitute. When apprehended for the offence in question, the teachers of
-anatomy are obliged to pay the expenses of the trial, and to support
-their families while they are in prison; whence the idea of immunity is
-associated, in these men’s minds, with the violation of the law, and
-when they do happen to incur its penalties, they practically find that
-they and their families are provided for, and this provision comes to
-them in the shape of a reward for the commission of their offence. The
-operation of such a system on the minds of the individuals themselves is
-exceedingly pernicious, and is not a little dangerous to the community.
-
-Moreover, by the method of exhumation, the supply after all is scanty;
-it is never adequate to the wants of the schools; it is of necessity
-precarious, and it sometimes fails altogether for several months. But it
-is of the utmost importance that it should be abundant, regular, and
-cheap. The number of young men who come annually to London for the
-purpose of studying medicine and surgery, may be about a thousand. Their
-expenses are necessarily very considerable while in town; they have
-already paid a large sum for their apprenticeship in the country; the
-circumstances of country practitioners, in general, can but ill afford
-protracted expenses for their sons in London; few of them stay a month
-longer than the time prescribed by the College of Surgeons. But the
-short period they spend in London is the only time they have for
-acquiring the knowledge of their profession. If they mis-spend these
-precious hours, or if the means of employing them properly be denied
-them, they must necessarily remain ignorant for life. After they leave
-London they have no means of dissecting. We have seen that it is by
-dissecting alone, that they can make themselves acquainted even with the
-principles of their art; that without it they cannot so much as avail
-themselves of the opportunities of improvement, which experience itself
-may offer, nor, without the highest temerity, perform a single
-operation. We have seen that occasions suddenly occur, which require
-the prompt performance of important and difficult operations; we have
-seen that, unless such operations are performed immediately, and with
-the utmost skill, life is inevitably lost. In many such cases there is
-no time to send for other assistance. If a country practitioner (and
-most of these young men go to the country) be not himself capable of
-doing what is proper to be done, the death of the patient is certain. We
-put it to the reader to imagine what the feelings of an ingenuous young
-man must be, who is aware of what he ought to do, but who is conscious
-that his knowledge is not sufficient to authorise him to attempt to
-perform it, and who sees his patient die before him, when he knows that
-he might be saved and that it would have been in his own power to save
-him, had he been properly educated. We put it to the reader to conceive
-what his own sensations would be, were an ignorant surgeon, with a
-rashness more fatal than the criminal modesty of the former, to
-undertake an important operation. Suppose it were a tumour, which turned
-out to be an aneurism; suppose it were a hernia, in operating on which
-the epigastric artery were divided, or the intestine itself wounded;
-suppose it were his mother, his wife, his sister, his child, whom he
-thus saw perish before his eyes, what would the reader then think of the
-prejudice which withholds from the surgeon that information without
-which the practice of his profession is murder?
-
-The study of anatomy is a severe and laborious study; the practice of
-dissection is on many accounts highly repulsive: it is even not without
-danger to life itself.[A] To men of clear understandings, to those
-especially of a philosophical turn of mind, the pursuit is its own
-reward; they are so fully satisfied that the more it is cultivated the
-more satisfaction it will afford, that they need no stimulus to induce
-them to undergo the drudgery. But this is by no means the case with
-ordinary minds. The fatigue and disgust of the dissecting-room are
-appalling to them, and they need the stimulus of necessity to urge them
-to the task. The court of examiners of the College of Surgeons requires
-from the candidates for surgical diplomas certificates that they have
-gone through at least two courses of dissections; the examiners at
-Apothecaries’-hall do not require such certificates. The consequence is,
-that many young men content themselves with attending lectures, and with
-passing their examinations at Apothecaries’-hall, and do not apply for a
-diploma at the College of Surgeons. This single fact is sufficient to
-demonstrate to the public that, instead of throwing obstacles in the way
-of dissection, it is a duty which they owe to themselves to afford every
-possible facility to its practice, and to hold out to every member of
-the profession, the most powerful inducements to engage in it, by
-rewarding with confidence those who cultivate anatomy, by making
-excellence in anatomy indispensable to all offices in dispensaries and
-hospitals, and by thus rendering it impossible for any one who is
-ignorant of anatomy, to obtain rank in his profession. When a candidate
-presents himself for a diploma in Denmark, in his first trial he is put
-into a room with a subject, a case of instruments, and a memorandum, and
-informed that he is to display the anatomy of the face and neck, or that
-of the upper extremity or that of the lower extremity: that by the
-anatomy is to be understood, the blood-vessels, nerves and muscles; and
-that as soon as he has accomplished his task, the professors will attend
-his summons to judge of his attainments. These professors are the true
-examiners!
-
-We shall have entered into the discussion of this subject to little
-purpose, if we have not produced in the minds of our readers a deep
-conviction, that anatomy ought to form an essential part of medical
-education; that anatomy cannot be studied without the practice of
-dissection; that dissection cannot be practised without a supply of
-subjects, and that the manner in which that supply is obtained in
-England is detestable and ought immediately to be changed.
-
-The plan we would propose to substitute is the following:--
-
-1. That the bodies of those persons who die in all infirmaries and
-hospitals throughout the kingdom, _unclaimed by immediate relatives_, be
-appropriated to the purpose of anatomy.
-
-2. That the bodies of those persons who die in all work-houses and
-poor-houses be appropriated to the same purpose.
-
-3. That the bodies of those persons who die in all houses of correction,
-in all prisons, and in the hulks, be thus appropriated.
-
-An objection may be anticipated to such an appropriation of the bodies
-of those who die in infirmaries and hospitals. And it is admitted, that
-in the present state of public feeling it would not be right thus to
-appropriate the bodies of _all_ who die in those public charities. But
-this is not proposed: what is proposed is to appropriate to this use the
-bodies of those ONLY _who die unclaimed by immediate relatives_. No
-reasonable objection can be urged to this measure thus guarded. No one
-who has not inquired into the subject can have any conception of the
-number of persons who die in the public hospitals in London, unvisited
-by friends during life, unclaimed by them after death. Surely to devote
-to this use the bodies of those who die under such circumstances can
-inflict no wound on any private individual--can violate no public right.
-Still there is one objection to the measure which is specious but not
-solid. It is urged that it might be the means of deterring this class of
-persons from entering the hospitals. The answer to this objection is
-complete, because it is an answer derived from experience. The measure
-has been actually adopted, and found in practice to be unattended with
-this result: it was tried in Edinburgh and the hospital was as full as
-it is at present: it is universally acted on in France, and the
-hospitals are always crowded.
-
-It has been stated that this plan has been tried in Edinburgh, and that
-experience has proved its efficacy. It was, in fact, adopted in that
-city with perfect success more than a century ago. In the Council
-Register for 1694, it is recorded that all unclaimed dead bodies in the
-charitable institutions or in the streets, were given for dissection to
-the College of Surgeons, to one or two of its individual members, and to
-the professor of anatomy. This regulation, at that period, excited no
-opposition on the part of the people, but effectually answered the
-desired object. All the medical schools on the continent are supplied
-with subjects, by public authority, in a similar manner. The following
-account of the mode in which those of Paris in particular are supplied,
-has been obtained from the gentleman who is at the head of the
-anatomical department in that city. It is stated; 1. That the faculty of
-medicine at Paris is authorized to take from the civil hospitals, from
-the prisons, and from dépôts of mendicity, the bodies which are
-necessary for teaching anatomy. 2. That a gratuity of eight-pence is
-given to the attendants in the hospitals for each body. 3. That upon the
-foundation by the National Convention, of schools of health, the
-statutes of their foundation declare, that the subjects necessary for
-the schools of anatomy shall be taken from the hospitals, and that since
-this period, the council of hospitals, and the prefect of police, have
-always permitted the practice. 4. That M. Breschet, chief of the
-anatomical department of the faculty of Paris, sends a carriage daily to
-the different hospitals, which brings back the necessary number of
-bodies: that this number has sometimes amounted to 2,000 per annum, for
-the faculty only, without reckoning those used in L’Hôpital de la Pitié,
-but that since the general attention which has recently been bestowed
-upon pathologic anatomy, numbers of bodies are opened in the civil and
-military hospitals, and that the faculty seldom obtain more than 1,000
-or 1,200. 5. That, besides the dissections by the faculty of medicine,
-and those pursued in L’Hôpital de la Pitié, theatres of anatomy are
-opened in all the great hospitals, for the pupils of those
-establishments: that in these institutions anatomy is carefully taught,
-and that pupils have all the facilities for dissection that can be
-desired. 6. That the price of a body varies from four shillings to eight
-shillings and sixpence. 7. That after dissection, the bodies are wrapt
-in cloths, and carried to the neighbouring cemetery, where they are
-received for ten-pence. 8. That the practice of exhumation is abolished:
-that there are insurmountable obstacles to the return to that system,
-and that bodies are never taken from burial grounds, without an order
-for exhumation, which is given only when the tribunals require it for
-the purpose of medico-legal investigations. 9. That though the people
-have an aversion to the operations of dissection, yet they never make
-any opposition to them, provided respect be paid to the laws of decency
-and salubrity, on account of the deep conviction that prevails of their
-utility. 10. That the relatives of the deceased seldom or never oppose
-the opening of any body, if the physicians desire it. That all the
-medical students in France, with scarcely any exception, dissect, and
-that that physician or surgeon who is not acquainted with anatomy, is
-universally regarded as the most ignorant of men.
-
-To the other parts of the plan proposed above for supplying the
-anatomical schools in Great Britain, there appears to be no objections
-whatever. No one can object to such a disposal of the bodies of those
-who die in prisons; no one can reasonably object to such a disposal of
-the bodies of those who die in poor-houses. These persons are pensioners
-upon the public bounty: they owe the public a debt: they have been
-supported by the public during life; if, therefore, after death they
-can be made useful to the public, it is a prejudice, not a reason--it is
-an act of injustice, not the observance of a duty, which would prevent
-them from becoming so. It is true that many of these persons are honest
-and respectable; and have been reduced to indigence by misfortune: were
-they all so it would not alter the state of the argument. Some
-concession and co-operation on the part of the public, for this great
-public object, is indispensable, without which nothing can be done: but
-if any concession be made, it can be made with respect to this class of
-persons better than any other, because it can be made with less
-violation of public feeling. Nor is any indignity either intended or
-offered to these persons. They are appropriated to this service not
-because they are poor, but because they are friendless: because, that
-is, no persons survive them who take such an interest in their fate as
-to be rendered unhappy by this disposal of their remains. That they are
-without friends is no good reason why their memory should be treated
-with indignity; but it is a good reason, it is the best possible reason
-why they should be selected for this public service. Poverty, it is
-true, is a misfortune: poverty, it is true, has terror and pain enough
-in itself: no legislature ought by any act to increase its wretchedness;
-but the measure here proposed is pregnant with good to the poor, and
-would tend more than can be estimated to lessen the misery of their
-condition. For it would give knowledge to the lowest practitioners of
-the medical art; that is, to the persons who are at present lamentably
-deficient, and into whose hands the great bulk of the poor fall. And,
-after all, the true question is, whether the surgeon shall be allowed to
-gain knowledge by operating on the bodies of the dead, or driven to
-obtain it by practising on the bodies of the living. If the dead bodies
-of the poor are not appropriated to this use, their living bodies must
-be--and will be. The rich will always have it in their power to select,
-for the performance of an operation, the surgeon who has signalized
-himself by success: but that surgeon, if he have not obtained the
-dexterity which ensures success, by dissecting and operating on the
-dead, must have acquired it by making experiments on the living bodies
-of the poor. There is no other means by which he can possibly have
-gained the necessary information. Every such surgeon who has attained
-deserved eminence, must have risen to it through the suffering which he
-has inflicted, and the death which he has brought upon hundreds of the
-poor. What would be the immediate and constant effect of an abolition of
-the practice of dissecting the dead? It would be to convert poor-houses
-and public hospitals into so many schools where the surgeons, by
-practising on the living bodies of the poor, would learn to operate on
-those of the rich with safety and dexterity. Thus the poor would be
-tortured, and many of them would be put to death in order that the rich
-might be saved from pain and danger. This would be the certain and
-inevitable result--this would indeed be to treat this class of the
-people with real indignity and horrible injustice, and proves how
-possible it is to show an apparent consideration for the poor, and yet
-practically to abuse them in the most cruel manner.
-
-The plan now proposed for remedying the evils which have been stated
-would accomplish the object easily and completely: it would inflict no
-injury on any private individual: it would do no violence to the public
-feeling: it would render the dread of anatomy, as far as that dread were
-really operative, directly beneficial to the community: it would
-terminate at once the evils of the present system: it would put an end
-to the education of daring and desperate violators of the law: it would
-tranquillize the public mind: the dead would rest undisturbed: the
-sepulchre would be sacred, and all the horrors which the imagination
-connects with its violation would cease for ever.
-
-We submit these observations to the calm and serious consideration of
-our countrymen. We address them especially to the members of our
-legislature. Upon the attention of the latter we would particularly urge
-this further consideration, the importance of which they well know how
-to estimate. In consequence of the difficulty of procuring subjects in
-England, every medical student in Great Britain who can possibly afford
-the time now goes to Paris to perfect himself in anatomy. Accordingly
-the number of English students in Paris is already immense: that number
-increases rapidly every year: it increases by the desertion of the
-schools in Edinburgh and London. The consequence is obvious, and will be
-surely and deeply felt in a few years. Anatomy will be neglected in
-England, and for this indispensable branch of knowledge England will
-become entirely dependent on France. There cannot be a doubt that there
-is good sense enough among the people of England to submit to whatever
-regulations may be necessary to prevent evils so serious and so fatal,
-provided such regulations are framed in a proper spirit, and observed
-with a due regard to decorum, and it is certain that those persons who
-co-operate to establish these regulations will ultimately receive, as
-they will deserve, the gratitude of their country.
-
-
-                                FINIS.
-
-
-                T. C. Hansard, Pater-noster-row Press.
-
-
-FOOTNOTE:
-
-[A] A winter never passes without proving fatal to several students who
-die from injuries received in dissection.
-
-
-
-
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-<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Body-snatching, by Anonymous</p>
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-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Body-snatching</p>
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Anonymous</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: October 16, 2022 [eBook #69167]</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p>
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-<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BODY-SNATCHING ***</div>
-<hr class="full">
-
-<p class="c"><img src="images/cover.jpg"
-height="550"
-alt=""></p>
-
-<div class="blk">
-<h1>BODY-SNATCHING.</h1>
-
-<p class="c"><small>Published by</small><br>
-BALDWIN, CRADOCK, AND JOY,<br>
-
-LONDON.<br>
-&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<br>
-1824.</p>
-</div>
-
-<p class="c"><span class="ov">T. C. HANSARD,</span><br>
-<span class="und">Pater-noster-row Press.</span>
-</p>
-
-<h2><a id="ADVERTISEMENT"></a>ADVERTISEMENT.</h2>
-
-<p>THE following pages are reprinted, with some modification, from the
-third Number of the Westminster Review. They treat of a subject on which
-it is of great importance that the public should be well informed, and
-it is in order to facilitate the circulation of the knowledge which they
-communicate respecting it, that the proprietors of the above-mentioned
-work have liberally consented to the re-publication of this article in
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_1">{1}</a></span>the form of a pamphlet.</p>
-
-<h2><a id="BODY-SNATCHING"></a>BODY-SNATCHING.</h2>
-
-<p class="nind"><span class="letra">E</span>VERY one desires to live as long as he can. Every one values health
-“above all gold and treasure.” Every one knows that, as far as his own
-individual good is concerned, protracted life and a frame of body sound
-and strong, free from the thousand pains which flesh is heir to, are
-unspeakably more important than all other objects, because life and
-health must be secured before any possible result of any possible
-circumstance can be of consequence to him. In the improvement of the art
-which has for its object the preservation of health and life, every
-individual is, therefore, deeply interested. An enlightened physician
-and a skilful surgeon, are in the daily habit of administering to their
-fellow men more real and unquestionable good, than is communicated, or
-communicable by any other class of human beings to another. Ignorant
-physicians and surgeons are the most deadly enemies of the community:
-the plague itself is not so destructive: its ravages are at distant
-intervals, and are accompanied with open and alarming notice of its
-purpose and power; theirs are constant, silent, secret; and it is while
-they are looked up to as saviours, with the confidence of hope, that
-they give speed to the progress of disease and certainty to the stroke
-of death.</p>
-
-<p>It is deeply to be lamented that the community, in general, are so
-entirely ignorant of all that relates to the art and the science of
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_2">{2}</a></span>medicine. An explanation of the functions of the animal economy; of
-their most common and important deviations from a healthy state; of the
-remedies best adapted to restore them to a sound condition, and of the
-mode in which they operate, as far as that is known, ought to form a
-part of every course of liberal education. The profound ignorance of the
-people on all these subjects is attended with many disadvantages to
-themselves, and operates unfavourably on the medical character. In
-consequence of this want of information, persons neither know what are
-the attainments of the man in whose hands they place their life, nor
-what they ought to be; they can neither form an opinion of the course of
-education which it is incumbent upon him to follow, nor judge of the
-success with which he has availed himself of the means of knowledge
-which have been afforded him. There is one branch of medical education
-in particular, the foundation, in fact, on which the whole
-superstructure must be raised, the necessity of which is not commonly
-understood, but which requires only to be stated to be perceived.
-Perhaps it is impossible to name any one subject which it is of more
-importance that the community should understand. It is one in which
-every man’s life is deeply implicated: it is one on which every man’s
-ignorance or information will have some influence. We shall therefore,
-show the kind of knowledge which it is indispensable that the physician
-and the surgeon should possess: we shall illustrate, by a reference to
-particular cases, the reason why knowledge of this kind cannot be
-dispensed with: and we shall explain, by a statement of facts, the
-nature and extent of the obstacles which at present oppose the
-acquisition of this knowledge. We repeat, there is no subject in which
-every reader can be so immediately and deeply interested, and we trust
-that he will give us his calm and unprejudiced attention.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_3">{3}</a></span></p><p>The basis of all medical and surgical knowledge is anatomy. Not a
-single step can be made either in medicine or surgery, considered either
-as an art or a science, without it. This should seem self-evident, and
-to need neither proof nor illustration: nevertheless as it is useful
-occasionally to contemplate the evidence of important truth, we shall
-show why it is that there can be no rational medicine, and no safe
-surgery, without a thorough knowledge of anatomy.</p>
-
-<p>Disease, which it is the object of these arts to prevent and to cure, is
-denoted by disordered function: disordered function cannot be understood
-without a knowledge of healthy function; healthy function cannot be
-understood without a knowledge of structure; structure cannot be
-understood unless it be examined.</p>
-
-<p>The organs on which all the important functions of the human body depend
-are concealed from the view. There is no possibility of ascertaining
-their situation and connections, much less their nature and operation,
-without inspecting the interior of this curious and complicated machine.
-The results of the mechanism are visible; the mechanism itself is
-concealed, and must be investigated to be perceived. The operations of
-nature are seldom entirely hidden from the human eye; still less are
-they obtruded upon it, but over the most curious and wonderful
-operations of the animal economy so thick a veil is drawn, that they
-never could have been perceived without the most patient and minute
-research. The circulation of the blood, for example, never could have
-been discovered without dissection. Notwithstanding the partial
-knowledge of anatomy which must have been acquired by the accidents to
-which the human body is exposed, by attention to wounded men, by the
-observance of bodies killed by violence; by the huntsman in using his
-prey; by the priest in immolating his victims; by the augur in pursuing
-his divinations; by the slaughter of animals; by the dissection of
-brutes; and even occasionally by the dissection of the human<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_4">{4}</a></span> body,
-century after century passed away, without a suspicion having been
-excited of the real functions of the two great systems of vessels,
-arteries and veins. It was not until the beginning of the 17th century,
-when anatomy was ardently cultivated, and had made considerable
-progress, that the valves of the veins and of the heart were discovered,
-and subsequently that the great Harvey, the pupil of the anatomist who
-discovered the latter, by inspecting the structure of these valves; by
-contemplating their disposition; by reasoning upon their use, was led to
-suspect the course of the blood, and afterwards to demonstrate it.
-Several systems of vessels in which the most important functions of
-animal life are carried on&#8212;the absorbent system, for example, and even
-that portion of it which receives the food after it is digested, and
-which conveys it into the blood, are invisible to the naked eye, except
-under peculiar circumstances: whence it must be evident, not only that
-the interior of the human body must be laid open, in order that its
-organs may be seen; but that these organs must be minutely and patiently
-dissected, in order that their structure may be understood.</p>
-
-<p>The most important diseases have their seat in the organs of the body;
-an accurate acquaintance with their situation is, therefore, absolutely
-necessary, in order to ascertain the seats of disease; but for the
-reasons already assigned, their situation cannot be learnt, without the
-study of anatomy. In several regions, organs the most different in
-structure and function are placed close to each other. In what is termed
-the epigastric region, for example, are situated the stomach, the liver,
-the gall bladder, the first portion of the small intestine (the
-duodenum) and a portion of the large intestine (the colon); each of
-these organs is essentially different in structure and in use, and is
-liable to distinct diseases. Diseases the most diversified, therefore
-requiring the most opposite treatment, may exist in the same region of
-the body;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_5">{5}</a></span> the discrimination of which is absolutely impossible, without
-that knowledge which the study of anatomy alone can impart.</p>
-
-<p>The seat of pain is often at a great distance from that of the affected
-organ. In disease of the liver, pain is generally felt at the top of the
-right shoulder. The right phrenic nerve sends a branch to the liver: the
-third cervical nerve, from which the phrenic arises, distributes
-numerous branches to the neighbourhood of the shoulder: thus is
-established a nervous communication between the shoulder and the liver.
-This is a fact which nothing but anatomy could teach, and affords the
-explanation of a symptom which nothing but anatomy could give. The
-knowledge of it would infallibly correct a mistake into which a person
-who is ignorant of it would be sure to fall: in fact, persons ignorant
-of it do constantly commit the error. We have known several instances in
-which organic disease of the liver has been considered, and treated as
-rheumatism of the shoulder. In each of these cases, disease in a most
-important organ might have been allowed to steal on insidiously until it
-became incurable: while a person, acquainted with anatomy, would have
-detected it at once, and cured it without difficulty. Many cases have
-occurred of persons who have been supposed to labour under disease of
-the liver, and who have been treated accordingly: on examination after
-death, the liver has been found perfectly healthy, but there has been
-discovered extensive disease of the brain. Disease of the liver is often
-mistaken for disease of the lungs: on the other hand, the lungs have
-been found full of ulcers, when they were supposed to have been
-perfectly sound, and when every symptom was referred to disease of the
-liver. Persons are constantly attacked with convulsions&#8212;children
-especially; convulsions are spasms: spasms, of course, are to be treated
-by antispasmodics. This is the notion amongst people ignorant of
-medicine: it is the notion<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_6">{6}</a></span> amongst old medical men: it is the notion
-amongst half-educated young ones. All this time these convulsions are
-merely a symptom; that symptom depends upon, and denotes, most important
-disease in the brain: the only chance of saving life, is the prompt and
-vigorous application of proper remedies to the brain; but the
-practitioner whose mind is occupied with the symptom, and who prescribes
-antispasmodics, not only loses the time in which alone any thing can be
-done to snatch the victim from death, but by his remedies absolutely
-adds fuel to the flame which is consuming his patient. In disease of the
-hip-joint pain is felt, not in the hip, but, in the early stage of the
-disease, at the knee. This also depends on nervous communication. The
-most dreadful consequences daily occur from an ignorance of this single
-fact. In all these cases error is inevitable, without a knowledge of
-anatomy: it is scarcely possible with it: in all these cases error is
-fatal: in all these cases anatomy alone can prevent the error&#8212;anatomy
-alone can correct it. Experience, so far from leading to its detection,
-would only establish it in men’s minds, and render its removal
-impossible. What is called experience is of no manner of use to an
-ignorant and unreflecting practitioner. In nothing does the adage, that
-it is the wise only who profit by experience, receive so complete an
-illustration as in medicine. A man who is ignorant of certain
-principles, and who is incapable of reasoning in a certain manner, may
-have daily before him, for fifty years, cases affording the most
-complete evidence of the truth of those principles, and of the
-importance of the deduction to which they lead, without observing the
-one, or deducing the other. Hence the most profoundly ignorant of
-medicine are often the oldest members of the profession, and those who
-have had the most extensive practice. A medical education, founded on a
-knowledge of anatomy, is, therefore, not only indispensable to prevent
-the most fatal errors, but to enable a person to obtain advantage<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_7">{7}</a></span> from
-those sources of improvement which extensive practice may open to him.</p>
-
-<p>To the surgeon, anatomy is eminently what Bacon has so beautifully said
-knowledge in general is: it is power&#8212;it is power to lessen pain, to
-save life, and to eradicate diseases, which, without its aid, would be
-incurable and fatal. It is impossible to convey to the reader a clear
-conception of this truth, without a reference to particular cases; and
-the subject is one of such extreme importance, that it may be worth
-while to direct the attention for a moment to two or three of the
-capital diseases which the surgeon is daily called upon to treat.
-Aneurism, for example, is a disease of an artery, and consists of a
-preternatural dilatation of its coats. This dilatation arises from
-debility of the vessel, whence, unable to resist the impetus of the
-blood, it yields, and is dilated into a sac. When once the disease is
-induced, it commonly goes on to increase with a steady and uninterrupted
-progress, until at last it suddenly bursts, and the patient expires
-either instantaneously from loss of blood, or by degrees from repeated
-losses. When left to itself, it almost uniformly proves fatal in one or
-other of these modes; yet, before the time of Galen, no notice was taken
-of this terrible malady. The ancients, indeed, who believed that the
-arteries were air tubes, could have had no conception of the existence
-of an aneurism. Were the number of individuals in Europe, who are now
-annually cured of aneurism, by the interference of art, to be assumed as
-the basis of a calculation of the number of persons who must have
-perished by this disease, from the beginning of the world to the time of
-Galen, it would convey some conception of the extent to which anatomical
-knowledge is the means of saving human life.</p>
-
-<p>The only way in which it is possible to cure this disease is, to produce
-an obliteration of the cavity of the artery. This is the object of the
-operation. The diseased artery is exposed, and a ligature is passed<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_8">{8}</a></span>
-around it, above the dilatation, by means of which the blood is
-prevented from flowing into the sac, and inflammation is excited in the
-vessel; in consequence of which its sides adhere together, and its
-cavity becomes obliterated. The success of the operation depends
-entirely on the completeness of the adhesion of the sides of the vessel,
-and the consequent obliteration of its cavity. This adhesion will not
-take place unless the portion of the artery to which the ligature is
-applied be in a sound state. If it be diseased, as it almost always is
-near the seat of the aneurism, when the process of nature is completed
-by which the ligature is removed, hemorrhage takes place, and the
-patient dies just as if the aneurism had been left to itself. For a long
-time the ligature was applied as close as possible to the seat of the
-aneurism: the aneurismal sac was laid open in its whole extent, and the
-blood it contained was scooped out. The consequence, was that a large
-deep-seated sore, composed of parts in an unhealthy state, was formed:
-it was necessary to the cure, that this sore should suppurate,
-granulate, and heal: a process which the constitution was frequently
-unable to support. Moreover, there was a constant danger that the
-patient would perish from hemorrhage, through the want of adhesion of
-the sides of the artery. The profound knowledge of healthy and of
-diseased structure, and of the laws of the animal economy by which both
-are regulated, which John Hunter had acquired from anatomy, suggested to
-this eminent man a mode of operating, the effect of which, in preserving
-human life, has placed him high in the rank of the benefactors of his
-race. This consummate anatomist saw, that the reason why death so often
-followed the common operation was, because that process which was
-essential to its success was prevented by the diseased condition of the
-artery. He perceived that the vessel, at some distance from the
-aneurism, was in a sound state; and conceived that, if the ligature were
-applied to this distant part, that is, to a<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_9">{9}</a></span> sound instead of a diseased
-portion of the artery, this necessary process would not be counteracted.
-To this there was one capital objection, that it would often be
-necessary to apply the ligature around the main trunk of an artery,
-before it gives off its branches, in consequence of which the parts
-below the ligature would be deprived of their supply of blood, and would
-therefore mortify. So frequent and great are the communications between
-all the arteries of the body, however, that he thought it probable, that
-a sufficient supply would be borne to these parts through the medium of
-collateral branches. For an aneurism in the ham, he, therefore, boldly
-cut down upon the main trunk of the artery which supplies the lower
-extremity; and applied a ligature around it, where it is seated near the
-middle of the thigh, in the confident expectation that, though he thus
-deprived the limb of the supply of blood which it received through its
-direct channel, it would not perish. His knowledge of the processes of
-the animal economy led him to expect that the force of the circulation
-being thus taken off from the aneurismal sac, the progress of the
-disease would be stopped; that the sac itself, with all its contents,
-would be absorbed; that by this means the whole tumour would be removed,
-and that an opening into it would be unnecessary. The most complete
-success followed this noble experiment, and the sensations which this
-philosopher experienced when he witnessed the event, must have been
-exquisite, and have constituted an appropriate reward for the
-application of profound knowledge to the mitigation of human suffering.
-After Hunter followed Abernethy, who, treading in the footsteps of his
-master, for an aneurism of the femoral, placed a ligature around the
-external iliac artery; lately the internal iliac itself has been taken
-up, and surgeons have tied arteries of such importance, that they have
-been themselves astonished at the extent and splendor of their success.
-Every individual on whom an operation of this kind has been successfully
-per<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_10">{10}</a></span>formed, is snatched by it from certain and inevitable death!</p>
-
-<p>The symptom by which an aneurism is distinguished from every other
-tumour is, chiefly, its pulsating motion. But when an aneurism has
-become very large, it ceases to pulsate; and when an abscess is seated
-near an artery of great magnitude, it acquires a pulsating motion;
-because the pulsations of the artery are perceptible through the
-abscess. The real nature of cases of this kind cannot possibly be
-ascertained, without a most careful investigation, combined with an
-exact knowledge of the structure and relative position of all the parts
-in the neighbourhood of the tumour. Pelletan, one of the most
-distinguished surgeons of France, was one day called to a man who, after
-a long walk, was seized with a severe pain in the leg, over the seat of
-which appeared a tumour, which was attended with a pulsation so violent
-that it lifted up the hand of the examiner. There seemed every reason to
-suppose that the case was an aneurismal swelling. This acute observer,
-however, in comparing the affected with the sound limb, perceived in the
-latter a similar throbbing. On careful examination he discovered that,
-by a particular disposition in this individual, one of the main arteries
-of the leg (the anterior tibial) deviated from its usual course, and
-instead of plunging deep between the muscles, lay immediately under the
-skin and fascia. The truth was, that the man in the exertion of walking
-had ruptured some muscular fibres, and the uncommon distribution of the
-artery gave to this accident these peculiar symptoms. The real nature of
-this case could not possibly have been ascertained, but by an anatomist.
-The same surgeon has recorded the case of a man who, having fallen twice
-from his horse, and experienced for several years considerable
-uneasiness in his back, was at length afflicted with acute pain in the
-abdomen. At the same time an oval, irregularly circumscribed tumour made
-its appearance in the right flank. It presented a distinct fluctuation,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_11">{11}</a></span>
-and had all the appearance of a collection of matter depending on caries
-of the vertebræ. The pain was seated chiefly at the lower portion of
-that part of the spine which forms the back, which was, moreover,
-distorted; and this might have confirmed the opinion that the case was a
-lumbar abscess with caries. Pelletan, however, who well knew that an
-aneurism, as it enlarges, may destroy any bone in its neighbourhood, saw
-that the disease was an aneurism, and predicted that the patient must
-perish. On opening the body (for the man lived only ten days after
-Pelletan first saw him) an aneurismal tumour was discovered, which
-nearly filled the cavity of the abdomen. If this case had been mistaken
-for lumbar abscess, and the tumour had been opened with a view of
-affording an exit to the matter, the man would have died in a few
-seconds. There is no surgeon of discernment and experience whose
-attention has not been awakened, and whose sagacity has not been put to
-the test, by the occurrence of similar cases in his own practice. The
-consequence of error is almost always instantaneously fatal. The
-catalogue of such disastrous events is long and melancholy. Richerand
-has recorded, that Ferrand, head surgeon of the Hotel-Dieu, mistook an
-aneurism in the armpit for an abscess; plunged his knife into the
-swelling, and killed the patient. De Haen speaks of a person who died in
-consequence of an opening which was made, contrary to the advice of
-Boerhaave in a similar tumour at the knee. Vesalius was consulted about
-a tumour in the back, which he pronounced to be an aneurism; but an
-ignorant practitioner having made an opening into it, the patient
-instantly bled to death. Nothing can be more easy than to confound an
-aneurism of the artery of the neck with a swelling of the glands in its
-neighbourhood: with a swelling of the cellular substance which surrounds
-the artery; with abscesses of various kinds; but if a surgeon were to
-fall into this error, and to open a carotid aneurism, his patient would
-certainly be dead<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_12">{12}</a></span> in the space of a few moments. It must be evident,
-then, that a thorough knowledge of anatomy is not only indispensable to
-the proper treatment of cases of this description, but also to the
-prevention of the most fatal mistakes.</p>
-
-<p>There is nothing in surgery of more importance than the proper treatment
-of hemorrhage. Of the confusion and terror occasioned by the sight of a
-human being from whom the blood is gushing in torrents, and whose
-condition none of the spectators is able to relieve, no one can form an
-adequate conception, but those who have witnessed it. In all such cases
-there is one thing proper to be done, the prompt performance of which is
-generally as certainly successful, as the neglect of it is inevitably
-fatal. It is impossible to conceive of a more terrible situation than
-that of a medical man who knows not what to do on such an emergency. He
-is confused; he hesitates: while he is deciding what measures to adopt
-the patient expires: he can never think of that man’s death without
-horror, for he is conscious that, but for his ignorance he might have
-averted his patient’s fate. The ancient surgeons were constantly placed
-in this situation, and the dread inspired by it retarded the progress of
-surgery more than all other causes put together. Not only were they
-terrified from interfering with the most painful and destructive
-diseases, which experience has proved to be capable of safe and easy
-removal, but they were afraid to cut even the most trivial tumour. When
-they ventured to remove a part, they attempted it only by means of the
-ligature, or by the application of burning irons. When they determined
-to amputate, they never thought of doing so, until the limb had
-mortified, and the dead had separated from the living parts; for they
-were absolutely afraid to cut into the living flesh. They had no means
-of stopping hemorrhage, but by the application of astringents to the
-bleeding vessels, remedies which were inert; or of burning irons, or
-boiling turpentine, expedients which were<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_13">{13}</a></span> not only inert but cruel.
-Surgeons now know that the grand means of stopping hemorrhage is
-compression of the bleeding vessel. If pressure be made on the trunk of
-an artery, though blood be flowing from a thousand branches given off
-from it, the bleeding will cease. Should the situation of the artery be
-such as to allow of effectual external pressure, nothing further is
-requisite: the pressure being applied, the bleeding is stopped at once:
-should the situation of the vessel place it beyond the reach of external
-pressure, it is necessary to cut down upon it, and to secure it by the
-application of a ligature. Parè may be pardoned for supposing that he
-was led to the discovery of this invaluable remedy by inspiration of the
-Deity. By means of it the most formidable operations may be undertaken
-with the utmost confidence, because the wounded vessels can be secured
-the moment they are cut: by the same means the most frightful
-hemorrhages may be effectually stopped: and even when the bleeding is so
-violent as to threaten immediate death, it may often be averted by the
-simple expedient of placing the finger upon the wounded vessel, until
-there is time to tie it. But it is obvious that none of these expedients
-can be employed, and that these bleedings can neither be checked at the
-moment, nor permanently stopped, without such a knowledge of the course
-of the trunks and branches of vessels, as can be acquired only by the
-study of anatomy.</p>
-
-<p>The success of amputation is closely connected with the knowledge of the
-means of stopping hemorrhage. Not to amputate, is often to abandon the
-patient to a certain and miserable death. And all that the surgeon
-formerly did, was to watch the progress of that death: he had no power
-to stop or even to retard it. The fate of sir Philip Sidney is a
-melancholy illustration of this truth. This noble-minded man, the light
-and glory of his age, was cut off in the bloom of manhood, and the midst
-of his usefulness, by the wound of a<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_14">{14}</a></span> musket bullet in his left leg, a
-little above the knee, “when extraction of the ball, or amputation of
-the limb,” says his biographer, “would have saved his inestimable life:
-but the surgeons and physicians were unwilling to practice the one, and
-knew not how to perform the other. He was variously tormented by a
-number of surgeons and physicians for three weeks.” Amputation indeed
-was never attempted except where mortification had itself half performed
-the operation. The just apprehension of an hemorrhage which there was no
-adequate means of stopping, checked the hand of the boldest surgeon, and
-quailed the courage of the most daring patient&#8212;and if ever the
-operation was resorted to, it almost always proved fatal: the patient
-generally expired, according to the expression of Celsus, “<i>in ipso
-opere</i>.” How could it be otherwise? The surgeon cut through the flesh of
-his patient with a red hot knife: this was his only means of stopping
-the hemorrhage: by this expedient he sought to convert the whole surface
-of the stump into an eschar: but this operation, painful in its
-execution, and terrible in its consequences, when it even appeared to
-succeed, succeeded only for a few days; for the bleeding generally
-returned and proved fatal as soon as the sloughs or dead parts became
-loose. Plunging the stump into boiling oil, into boiling turpentine,
-into boiling pitch, for all these means were used, was attended with no
-happier result, and after unspeakable suffering, almost every patient
-perished. In the manner in which amputation is performed at present, not
-more than one person in twenty loses his life in consequence of the
-operation, even taking into the account all the cases in which it is
-practised in hospitals. In private practice, where many circumstances
-favour its success, it is computed that 95 persons out of 100 recover
-from it, when it is performed at a proper time, and in a proper manner.
-It seems impossible to exhibit a more striking illustration of the great
-value of anatomical knowledge.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_15">{15}</a></span></p>
-
-<p>But if there be any disease which, from the frequency of its occurrence,
-from the variety of its forms, from the difficulty of discriminating
-between it, and other maladies, and from the danger attendant on almost
-all its varieties, requires a combination of the most minute
-investigation, with the most accurate anatomical knowledge, it is that
-of hernia. This disease consists of a protrusion of some of the viscera
-of the abdomen, from the cavity in which they are naturally contained,
-into a preternatural bag, composed of the portion of the peritoneum (the
-membrane which lines the abdomen) which is pushed before them. It is
-computed that one sixteenth of the human race are afflicted with this
-malady. It is sometimes merely an inconvenient complaint, attended with
-no evil consequences whatever: but there is no form of this disease,
-which is not liable to be suddenly changed, and by slight causes, from a
-perfectly innocent state, into a condition which may prove fatal in a
-few hours. The disease itself occurs in numerous situations; it may be
-confounded with various diseases; it may exist in the most diversified
-states; it may require, without the loss of a single moment, a most
-important and delicate operation; and it may appear to demand this
-operation, while the performance of it may really be not only useless,
-but highly pernicious.</p>
-
-<p>The danger of hernia depends on its passing into that state which is
-technically termed strangulation. When a protruded intestine suffers
-such a degree of pressure, as to occasion a total obstruction to the
-passage of its contents, it is said to be strangulated. The consequence
-of pressure thus producing strangulation is, the excitement of
-inflammation: this inflammation must inevitably prove fatal unless the
-pressure be promptly removed. In most cases this can be effected only by
-the operation. Two things, then, are indispensable: first, the ability
-to ascertain that the symptoms are really produced by pressure, that is,
-to distinguish the disease from the affections<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_16">{16}</a></span> which resemble it; and
-secondly, when this is effected, to perform the operation with
-promptitude and success. The distinction of strangulated hernia from
-affections which resemble it, often requires the most exact knowledge
-and the most minute investigation. The intestine included in a hernial
-sac may be merely affected with colic, and thus give rise to the
-appearance of strangulation. It may be in a state of irritation,
-produced, for example, by unusual fatigue; and from this cause may be
-attacked with the symptoms of inflammation. Inflammation may be excited
-in the intestine, by the common causes of inflammation, which the hernia
-may have no share in inducing, and of which it may not even participate.
-Were this case mistaken, and the operation performed, it would not only
-be useless, but pernicious: while the attention of the practitioner
-would be diverted from the real nature of the malady; the prompt and
-vigorous application of the remedies which alone could save the patient
-would be neglected, and he would probably perish. On the other hand, a
-very small portion of intestine may become strangulated, and urgently
-require the operation. But there maybe no tumor; all the symptoms may be
-those, and, on a superficial examination, only those, of inflammation of
-the bowels. Were the real nature of this case mistaken, death would be
-inevitable. Nothing is more common than fatal errors of this kind. It is
-only a few months ago, that a physician was called in haste to a person
-who was said to be dying of inflammation of the bowels. Before he
-reached the house the man was dead. He had been ill only three days. On
-looking at the abdomen, there was a manifest hernia; the first glance
-was sufficient to ascertain the fact. The practitioner in attendance had
-known nothing of the matter; he had never suspected the real nature of
-the disease, and had made no inquiry which could have led to the
-detection of it. Here was a case which might probably have been saved,
-but for the criminal ignorance<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_17">{17}</a></span> and inattention of the practitioner.
-Whenever there are symptoms of inflammation of the bowels, examination
-of the abdomen is indispensable: and the life of the patient will often
-depend on the care and accuracy with which the investigation is made.</p>
-
-<p>But it is possible that inflammation may attack the parts included in
-the hernial sac, without arising from the hernia itself. The
-inflammation may be produced by the common causes of inflammation: there
-may be no pressure: there may be no strangulation: the swelling may be
-the seat, not the cause of the disease. In this case, too, the operation
-would be both useless and pernicious. Now all these are diversities
-which it is of the highest importance to discriminate. In some of them
-life depends on the clearness, accuracy, and promptitude, with which the
-discrimination is made. Promptitude is of no less consequence than
-accuracy. If the decision be not formed and acted on at once, it will be
-of no avail. The rapidity of the progress of this disease is often
-frightful. We have mentioned a case in which it was fatal in three days,
-but it not unfrequently terminates fatally in less than twenty-four
-hours. Sir Astley Cooper mentions a case in which the patient was dead
-in eight hours after the commencement of the disease. Larrey has
-recorded the case of a soldier in whom a hernia took place, which was
-strangulated immediately. He was brought to the “ambulance” instantly,
-and perished in two hours with gangrene of the part, and of the
-abdominal viscera. This was the second instance which had occurred to
-this surgeon of a rapidity thus appalling. What clearness of judgment,
-what accuracy of knowledge, what promptitude of decision, are necessary
-to treat such a disease with any chance of success!</p>
-
-<p>The moment that a case is ascertained to be strangulated hernia, an
-attempt must be made to liberate the parts from the stricture, and to
-replace them in their natural situation. This is first attempted by the
-hand, and the operation is technically termed the <i>taxis</i>.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_18">{18}</a></span> The patient
-must be placed in a particular position; pressure must be made in a
-particular direction; it is impossible to ascertain either, without an
-accurate knowledge of the structure of the parts. If pressure be made in
-a wrong direction, and in a rough and unscientific manner, the organs
-protruded instead of being urged through the proper opening are bruised
-against the parts which oppose their return. Many cases are on record,
-in which gangrene and even rupture of the intestine have been occasioned
-in this manner. When the parts cannot be returned by the hand, assisted
-by those remedies which experience has proved to be beneficial, the
-operation must be performed without the delay of a moment. To its proper
-performance two things are necessary. First, a minute anatomical
-knowledge of the various and complicated parts which are implicated in
-it; and secondly, a steady, firm, and delicate command of the knife. In
-the first place, the integuments must be divided; the cellular substance
-which intervenes between the skin and the hernial sac must be removed
-layer by layer with the knife and the dissecting forceps; the sac itself
-must be opened: this part of the operation must be performed with the
-most extreme caution: the sac being laid open, the protruded organs are
-now exposed to view. The operator must next ascertain the exact point
-where the stricture exists; having discovered its seat, he must make his
-incision with a particular instrument&#8212;in a certain direction&#8212;to a
-definite extent. On account of the nature of the parts implicated in the
-operation, and the proximity of important vessels, life depends on an
-exact knowledge and a precise and delicate attention to all these
-circumstances. How can this knowledge be obtained, how can this
-dexterity be acquired without a profound acquaintance with anatomy, and
-how can this be acquired without frequent and laborious dissection? The
-eye must become familiar with the appearance of the integuments, with
-the appearance of the cellular substance beneath it,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_19">{19}</a></span> with the
-appearance of the hernial sac, and of the changes which it undergoes by
-disease; with the appearance of the various viscera contained in it, and
-of their changes; and the hand must pay that steady and prompt obedience
-to the judgment which nothing but knowledge and the consciousness of
-knowledge can command. Even this is not all. When the operation has been
-performed thus far with perfect skill and success, the most opposite
-measures are required according to the actual state of the organs
-contained in the sac. If they are agglutinated together&#8212;if portions of
-them are in a state of mortification, to return them into the cavity of
-the abdomen in that condition would in general be certain death.
-Preternatural adhesion must be removed; mortified portions must be cut
-away: but how can this possibly be done without an acquaintance with
-healthy and diseased structure, and how can this be obtained without
-dissecting the organs in a state of health and of disease?</p>
-
-<p>It has been stated that the progress of strangulated hernia to a fatal
-termination is often frightfully rapid; in certain cases to delay the
-operation, even for a very short period, is, therefore, to lose the only
-chance of success. But ignorant and half-informed surgeons are afraid to
-operate. They are conscious that the operation is one of immense
-importance: they know that in the hands of an operator ignorant of
-anatomy, it is one of extreme hazard: they therefore put off the time as
-long as possible: they have recourse to every expedient: they resort to
-every thing but the only efficient remedy, and when at last they are
-compelled by a secret sense of shame to try that, it is too late. All
-the best practical surgeons express themselves in the strongest language
-on the importance of performing the operation early, if it be performed
-at all. On this point there is a perfect accordance between the most
-celebrated practitioners on the continent, and the great surgeons of our
-own country: all represent, in many parts of their writings, the
-dangerous and fatal<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_20">{20}</a></span> effects of delay. Mr. Hey in his Practical
-Observations, states that when he first began practice, he considered
-the operation as the last resource, and only to be employed when the
-danger appeared imminent. “By this dilatory mode of practice,” says he,
-“I lost three patients in five, upon whom the operation was performed.
-Having more experience of the urgency of the disease, I made it my
-custom, when called to a patient who had laboured two or three days
-under the disease, to wait only about two hours, that I might try the
-effect of bleeding (if that evacuation was not forbidden by some
-peculiar circumstance of the case) and the tobacco clyster. In this mode
-of practice I lost about two patients in nine, upon whom I operated.
-This comparison is drawn from cases nearly similar, leaving out of the
-account those cases in which gangrene of the intestine had taken place.
-I have now, at the time of writing this, performed the operation
-thirty-five times; and have often had occasion to lament that I
-performed it too late, but never that I had performed it too soon.”</p>
-
-<p>These observations are sufficient to show the importance of anatomy in
-certain surgical diseases. The state of medical opinion from the
-earliest ages to the present time, furnishes a most instructive proof of
-its necessity to the detection and cure of disease in general. The
-doctrines of the father of physic were in the highest degree vague and
-unmeaning. Every thing is resolved by Hippocrates into a general
-principle, which he terms nature; and to which he ascribes intelligence;
-which he clothes with the attribute of justice; and which he represents
-as possessing virtues and powers which he says are her servants, and by
-means of which she performs all her operations in the bodies of animals,
-distributes the blood, spirits, and heat, through all the parts of the
-body, and imparts to them life and sensation. He states that the manner
-in which she acts, is by attracting what is good or agreeable to each
-species, and retaining,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_21">{21}</a></span> preparing, and changing it: or, on the other
-hand, by rejecting whatever is superfluous or hurtful, after she has
-separated it from the good. This is the foundation of the doctrine of
-depuration, concoction, and crisis in fevers, so much insisted on by him
-and by other physicians after him; but when he explains what he means by
-nature, he resolves it into heat, which he says appears to have
-something immortal in it.</p>
-
-<p>The great opponent of Hippocrates was Asclepiades. He asserted that
-matter, considered in itself, is of an unchangeable nature: that all
-perceptible bodies are composed of a number of small ones, termed
-corpuscles, between which there are interspersed an infinity of small
-spaces totally void of matter: that the soul itself is composed of these
-corpuscles: that what is called nature is nothing more than matter and
-motion: that Hippocrates knew not what he said when he spoke of nature
-as an intelligent being, and ascribed to her various qualities and
-virtues: that the corpuscles, of which all bodies are composed, are of
-different figures, and consist of different assemblages: that all bodies
-contain numerous pores, or interstices, which are of different sizes:
-that the human body, like all other bodies, possesses pores peculiar to
-itself: that these pores are larger or smaller, according as the
-corpuscles which pass through them differ in magnitude: that the blood
-consists of the largest and the spirits and the heat of the smallest. On
-these principles Asclepiades founded his theory of medicine. He
-maintains that, as long as the corpuscles are freely received by the
-pores, the body remains in its natural state: that, on the contrary, as
-soon as any obstacle obstructs their passage, it begins to recede from
-that state: that, therefore, health depends on the just proportion
-between these pores and corpuscles: that, on the contrary, disease
-proceeds from a disproportion between them: that the most usual obstacle
-arises from a retention of some of the corpuscles in their ordinary
-passages, where they arrive<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_22">{22}</a></span> in too large a number, or are of irregular
-figures, or move too fast or proceed too slow: that phrensies,
-lethargies, pleurisies, burning fevers, for example, are occasioned by
-these corpuscles stopping of their own accord: that pain is produced by
-the stagnation of the largest of all these corpuscles, of which the
-blood consists: that, on the contrary, deliriums, languors,
-extenuations, leanness and dropsies derive their origin from a bad state
-of the pores, which are too much relaxed, or opened: that dropsy, in
-particular, proceeds from the flesh being perforated with various small
-holes which convert the nourishment received into them into water; that
-hunger is occasioned by an opening of the large pores of the stomach and
-belly: that thirst arises from an opening of the small pores: that
-intermittent fevers have the same origin: that quotidian fever is
-produced by a retention of the largest corpuscles; tertian fever by a
-retention of corpuscles somewhat smaller; and quartan fever by a
-retention of the smallest corpuscles of all.</p>
-
-<p>Galen maintained that the animal body is composed of three principles,
-namely, the solids, the humours, and the spirits: that the solid parts
-consist of similar and organic: that the humours are four in number,
-namely, the blood, the phlegm, the yellow bile, and the black bile: that
-the spirits are of three kinds, namely, the vital, the animal, and the
-natural; that the vital spirit is a subtle vapour which arises from the
-blood, and which derives its origin from the liver, the organ of
-sanguification: that the spirits, thus formed, are conveyed to the
-heart, where, in conjunction with the air drawn into the lungs by
-respiration, they become the matter of the second species, namely, of
-the vital spirits; that in their turn the vital spirits are changed into
-the animal in the brain, and so on.</p>
-
-<p>At last came Paracelsus, who was believed to have discovered the elixir
-of life, and who is the very prince of charlatans. He delivered a course
-of lectures on the theory and practice of physic at the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_23">{23}</a></span> University of
-Basle, which he commenced, by burning the works of Galen and Avicenna in
-the presence of his auditory. He assured his hearers that his
-shoe-latchets had more knowledge than both these illustrious authors put
-together: that all the academies in the world had not so much experience
-as his beard; and that the hair on the back of his neck was more learned
-than the whole tribe of authors. It was fitting that a person of such
-splendid pretensions should have a magnificent name. He, therefore,
-called himself <span class="smcap">Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelcus Bombast Von
-Hohenheim</span>. He was a great chemist, and, like other chemists, he was a
-little too apt to carry into other sciences “the smoke and tarnish of
-the furnace.” He conceived that the elements of the living system were
-the same as those of his laboratory, and that sulphur, salt, and
-quicksilver were the constituents of organised bodies. He taught that
-these constituents were combined by chemical operations: that their
-relations were governed by Archeus, a demon, who performed the part of
-alchemist in the stomach, who separated the poisonous from the nutritive
-part of the food, and who communicated the tincture by which the food
-became capable of assimilation: that this governor of the stomach, this
-<i>spiritus vitæ</i>, this astral body of man, was the immediate cause of all
-diseases and the chief agent in their cure: that each member of the body
-had its peculiar stomach, by which the work of secretion was effected:
-that diseases were produced by certain influences, of which there were
-five in particular, viz. <i>ens estrale</i>, <i>ens veneni</i>, <i>ens naturale</i>,
-<i>ens spirituale</i>, and <i>ens deale</i>; that when the Archeus was sick,
-putrescence was occasioned, and that either <i>localiter</i> or
-<i>emunctorialiter</i>, &amp;c. &amp;c.</p>
-
-<p>It would be leading to a detail which is incompatible with our present
-purpose to follow these speculations, or to give an account of the
-doctrines of the mechanical physicians, who believed that every
-oper<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_24">{24}</a></span>ation of the animal economy was explained by comparing it to a
-system of ropes, levers, and pulleys, united with a number of rigid
-tubes of different lengths and diameters, containing fluids which, from
-variations in their impelling causes, moved with different degrees of
-velocity: or of the chemical physicians, whose manner of theorizing and
-investigating would have qualified them better for the occupation of the
-brewer or of the distiller than for that of the physician. All these
-speculations are idle fancies, without any evidence whatever to support
-them; and it has been argued that, for this very reason, they must have
-been without any practical result, and that, therefore, if they were
-productive of no benefit, they were, at least, innoxious. No opinion can
-be more false or pernicious. These wretched theories not only
-pre-occupied the mind, prevented it from observing the real phenomena of
-health and of disease, and the actual effect of the remedies which were
-employed, and thus put an effectual stop to the progress of the science:
-but they were productive of the most direct and serious evils. It is no
-less true in medicine than in philosophy and morals, that there is no
-such thing as innoxious error; that men’s opinions invariably influence
-their conduct; and that physicians, like other men, act as they think.
-Asclepiades, whose mind was full of corpuscles and interstices, was
-intent on finding suitable remedies, which he discovered in gestation,
-friction, and the use of wine. By various exercises he proposed to
-render the pores more open, and to make the juices and corpuscles, the
-retention of which causes disease, to pass more freely. Hence he used
-gestation from the very beginning of the most burning fevers. He laid it
-down as a maxim that one fever was to be cured by another; that the
-strength of the patient was to be exhausted by making him watch and
-endure thirst to such a degree that for the first two days of the
-disorder he would not allow them to cool their mouths with a drop of
-water.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_25">{25}</a></span> Abernethy’s regulated diet is luxurious living compared to his
-plan of abstinence. For the three first days he allowed his patients no
-aliment whatever; on the fourth, he so far relented as to give to some
-of them a small portion of food; but from others he absolutely withheld
-all nourishment till the seventh day. And this is the gentleman who laid
-it down as a maxim that all diseases are to be cured “<i>Tutò, celeriter
-et jucunde</i>.” To be sure he was a believer in the doctrine of
-compensation; and in the latter stage of their diseases endeavoured to
-recompence his patients for the privations he caused them to endure in
-the beginning of their illness. Celsus observes that though he treated
-his patients like a butcher during the first days of the disorder, he
-afterwards indulged them so far as to give directions for making their
-beds in the softest manner. He allowed them abundance of wine which he
-gave freely in all fevers; he did not forbid it even to those afflicted
-with phrenzy; nay, he ordered them to drink it till they were
-intoxicated; for, said he, it is absolutely necessary that persons who
-labour under phrenzy should sleep, and wine has a narcotic quality. To
-lethargic patients he prescribed it with great freedom, but with the
-opposite purpose of rousing them from their stupor. His great remedy in
-dropsy was friction, which, of course, he employed to open the pores.
-With the same view he enjoined active exercise to the sick; but what is
-a little extraordinary, he denied it to those in health.</p>
-
-<p>Erisistratus, who was a great speculator, and whose theories had the
-most important influence on his practice, banished blood-letting
-altogether from medicine, for the following notable reasons: because, he
-says, we cannot always see the vein we intend to open; because we are
-not sure we may not open an artery instead of a vein; because we cannot
-ascertain the true quantity to be taken; because if we take too little,
-the intention is not answered; if too much, we may destroy the patient:
-and because the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_26">{26}</a></span> evacuation of the venous blood is succeeded by that of
-the spirits, which thus pass from the arteries into the veins;
-wherefore, blood-letting ought never to be used as a remedy in disease.
-Yet, though he was thus cautious in abstracting blood, it must not be
-supposed that he was not a sufficiently bold practitioner. In tumour of
-the liver, he hesitated not to cut open the abdomen, and to apply his
-medicines immediately to the diseased organ; but though he took such
-liberties with the liver, he regarded with the greatest apprehension the
-operation of tapping in dropsy of the abdomen: because, said he, the
-waters being evacuated, the liver which is inflamed and become hard like
-a stone, is more pressed by the adjacent parts, which the waters kept at
-a distance from it, whence the patient dies.</p>
-
-<p>One physician conceived that gout originated from an effervescence of
-the synovia of the joints with the vitriolated blood: whence he
-recommended alcohol for its cure: a remedy for which the court of
-aldermen ought to have voted him a medal. A more ancient practitioner
-who believed that the finger of St. Blasius was very efficacious “for
-removing a bone which sticks in the throat,” maintained that gout was
-the “grand drier,” and prescribed a remedy for it which the patient was
-to use for a whole year, and to observe the following diet each month:
-in September he must eat and drink milk; in October he must eat garlic;
-in November he is to abstain from bathing; in December he must eat no
-cabbage; in January he is to take a glass of pure wine in the morning;
-in February to eat no beef; in March to mix several things both in
-eatables and drinkables; in April not to eat horse-radish; nor in May
-the fish called Polypus; in June he is to drink cold water in a morning;
-in July to avoid venery; and lastly, in August to eat no mallows.</p>
-
-<p>A third physician deduced all diseases from inspissation of the fluids;
-hence he attached the highest<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_27">{27}</a></span> importance to diluent drinks, and
-believed that tea, especially, is a sovereign remedy in almost every
-disease to which the human frame is subject: “tea,” says Bentakoe, who
-is loudest in his praises of this panacea, and who, as Blumenback
-observes, ‘deserved to have been pensioned by the East India Company for
-his services,’ “tea is the best, nay, the only remedy for correcting
-viscidity of the blood, the source of all diseases, and for dissipating
-the acid of the stomach, as it contains a fine oleaginous volatile salt,
-and certain subtle spirits which are analogous in their nature to the
-animal spirits. Tea fortifies the memory and all the intellectual
-faculties: it will therefore furnish the most effectual means of
-improving physical education. Against fever there is no better remedy
-than forty or fifty cups of tea swallowed immediately after one another;
-the slime of the pancreas is thus carried off.”</p>
-
-<p>Another physician derived all diseases from a redundancy or deficiency
-of fire or water. He maintained that where the water predominated the
-fluids became viscid, and that hence arose intermittent fevers and
-anthritic complaints. His remedies are in strict conformity to his
-theory. These diseases are to be cured by volatile salts, which abound
-with fiery particles; venesection in any case is highly pernicious;
-these fiery medicines are the only efficacious remedies, and are to be
-employed even in diseases of the most inflammatory nature. “Life,” says
-Dr. Brown, “is a forced state:” it is a flame kept alive by excitement;
-every thing stimulates; some substances too violently; others not
-sufficiently; there are thus too kinds of debility, indirect and direct,
-and to one or other of these causes must be referred the origin of all
-diseases. According to this doctrine the mode of cure is simple: we have
-nothing to do but to supply, to moderate, or to abstract stimuli. Typhus
-fever, in this system, is a disease of extreme debility: we must
-therefore give the strongest stimulants. Con<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_28">{28}</a></span>sumption and apoplexy,
-also, are diseases of debility; of course the remedies are active
-stimulants. Humanity shudders, and with reason, at the application of
-such doctrines to practice. And not less destitute of reason, and not
-less dangerous in practice, is the great doctrine of debility
-promulgated by Cullen. This celebrated professor taught that the
-circumstance which invariably characterized fever, that which
-constituted its essence, was debility. The inference was obvious, that,
-above all things, the strength must be supported. The consequence was,
-that blood-letting was neglected, and that bark and wine were given in
-immense quantities, in cases in which intense inflammation existed. The
-practice was in the highest degree mortal; the number of persons who
-have perished in consequence of this doctrine is incalculable. So far
-then is it from being true that medical theories are of no practical
-importance, that there is the closest possible connection between the
-speculations of the physician in his closet, and the measures which he
-adopts at the bed side of his patient. Truth to him is a benignant power
-which stops the progress of disease, protracts the duration of life, and
-mitigates the suffering it may be unable to remove: error is a fearfully
-active and tremendously potent principle. There is not a medical
-prejudice which has not slain its thousands, nor a false theory which
-has not immolated its tens of thousands. The system of medicine and
-surgery which is established in any country, has a greater influence
-over the lives of its inhabitants than the epidemic diseases produced by
-its climate, or the decisions of its government concerning peace and
-war. The devastations of the yellow fever will bear no comparison with
-the ravages committed by the Brunonian system; and the slaughter of the
-field of Waterloo counts not of victims, a tithe of the number of which
-the Cullenian doctrine of debility can justly boast. Anatomy alone will
-not teach a physician to think, much less to think justly; but it will<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_29">{29}</a></span>
-give him the elements of thinking; it will furnish him with the means of
-correcting his errors; it will certainly save him from some delusions,
-and will afford to the public the best shield against his ignorance,
-which may be fatal, and against his presumption, which may be
-devastating.</p>
-
-<p>We have entered into this minute detail at the hazard, we are aware, of
-tiring the reader; but in the hope of leaving on his mind a more
-distinct impression of the importance of anatomical knowledge than could
-possibly be produced by a mere allusion to the circumstances which have
-been explained. In all ages formidable obstacles have opposed the
-prosecution of anatomical investigations. Among these, without doubt,
-the most powerful has its source in a feeling which is natural to the
-heart of man. The sweetest, the most sacred associations are
-indissolubly connected with the person of those we love. It is with the
-corporeal frame that our senses have been familiar: it is that on which
-we have gazed with rapture: it is that which has so often been the
-medium of conveying to our hearts the thrill of extacy. We cannot
-separate the idea of the peculiarities and actions of a friend from the
-idea of his person. It is for this reason that “every thing which has
-been associated with him acquires a value from that consideration; his
-ring, his watch, his books, and his habitation. The value of these as
-having been his is not merely fictitious; they have an empire over my
-mind; they can make me happy or unhappy; they can torture and they can
-tranquillize; they can purify my sentiments and make me similar to the
-man I love; they possess the virtue which the Indian is said to
-attribute to the spoils of him he kills, and inspire me with the powers,
-the feelings, and the heart of their preceding master.” It is nothing,
-the survivor may justly say, to tell me, when disease has completed its
-work, and death has seized its prey, that that body, with which are
-connected so many delightful associations, is a senseless mass of
-matter: that it is no<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_30">{30}</a></span> longer my friend, that the spirit which animated
-it and rendered it lovely to my sight and dear to my affections, is
-gone. I know that it is gone. I know that I never more shall see the
-light of intelligence brighten that countenance, nor benevolence beam in
-that eye, nor the voice of affection sound from those lips: that which I
-loved, and which loved me, is not here: but here are still the features
-of my friend: this is his form, and the very particles of matter which
-compose this dull mass, a few hours ago were a real part of him, and I
-cannot separate them, in my imagination, from him. And I approach them
-with the profounder reverence; I gaze upon them with the deeper
-affection because they are all that remain to me. I would give all that
-I possess to purchase the art of preserving the wholesome character and
-rosy hue of this form that it might be my companion still: but this is
-impossible: I cannot detain it from the tomb: but when I have “cast a
-heap of mould upon the person of my friend and taken the cold earth for
-its keeper,” I visit the spot in which it is deposited with awe: it is
-sacred to my imagination: it is dear to my heart. There is a real and
-deep foundation for these feelings in human nature: they arise
-spontaneously in the bosom of man, and we see their expression and their
-power in the customs of all nations, savage as well as civilized, and in
-the conduct of all men, the most ignorant and uncultivated no less than
-the most intelligent and refined. It has been the policy of society to
-foster these sentiments. It has been conceived that the sanctity which
-attaches to the dead, is reflected back in a profounder feeling of
-respect for the living; that the solemnity with which death is regarded
-elevates, in the general estimation, the value of life; and that he who
-cannot approach the mortal remains of a fellow creature without an
-emotion of awe, must regard with horror every thing which places in
-danger the life of a human being. Religion has contributed indirectly,
-but powerfully, to the strength and perpetuity of these impressions; and
-superstition<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_31">{31}</a></span> has availed herself of them to play her antics and to
-accomplish her base and malignant purposes. It is not the eradication of
-these feelings that can be desired, but their control: it is not the
-extinction of these natural and useful emotions that is pleaded for, but
-that they should give way to higher considerations when these exist.
-Veneration for the dead is connected with the noblest and sweetest
-sympathies of our nature: but the promotion of the happiness of the
-living is a duty from which we can never be exonerated.</p>
-
-<p>In ancient times the voice of reason could not be heard. Superstition,
-and customs founded on superstition, excited an influence which was
-neither to be resisted nor evaded. Dissection was then regarded with
-horror. In the warm countries of the East the pursuit must have been
-highly offensive and even dangerous, and it was absolutely incompatible
-with the notions and ceremonies universally prevalent in those days. The
-Jewish tenet of pollution must have formed an insuperable obstacle to
-the cultivation of anatomy amongst that people. By the Egyptians every
-one who cut open a dead body was regarded with inexpressible horror. The
-Grecian philosophers so far overcame the prejudice as occasionally to
-engage in the pursuit, and the first dissection on record was one made
-by Democritus of Abdera, the friend of Hippocrates, in order to discover
-the course of the bile. The Romans contributed nothing to the progress
-of the art: they were content with propitiating the Deities who presided
-over health and disease. They erected on the Palatine Mount a temple to
-the goddess Febris, whom they worshipped from a dread of her power. They
-also sacrificed to the goddess Ossipaga, who, it seems, presided over
-the growth of the bones, and to another styled Carna, who took care of
-the viscera, and to whom they offered bean-broth, and bacon, because
-these were the most nutritious articles of diet. The Arabians adopted
-the Jewish notion of pollution, and were thus prohibited by the tenets
-of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_32">{32}</a></span> their religion from practising dissection. Abdollaliph, who
-flourished about the year 1200, a man of learning and a teacher of
-anatomy, never saw and never thought of a human dissection. In order to
-examine and demonstrate the bones, he took his students to burying
-grounds and earnestly recommended them, instead of reading books, to
-adopt that method of study: yet he seems to have had no conception that
-the dissection of a recent subject might be a still better method of
-learning. Christians were equally hostile to dissection. Pope Boniface
-the 8th issued a bull prohibiting even the maceration and preparation of
-skeletons. The priests were the only physicians, and so greatly did they
-abuse the office they assumed, that the evil at length became too
-intolerable to be borne. The church itself was obliged to prohibit the
-priesthood from interfering with the practice of medicine. All monks and
-canons who applied themselves to physic, were threatened with severe
-penalties, and all bishops, abbots, and priors who connived at their
-misconduct were ordered to be suspended from their ecclesiastical
-functions. But it was not till three hundred years after this
-interdiction, that, by a special bull which permitted physicians to
-marry, their complete separation from the clergy was effected.</p>
-
-<p>In the 14th century, Mundinus, professor at Bologna, astonished the
-world by the public dissection of two human bodies. In the 15th century,
-Leonardo da Vinci contributed essentially to the progress of the art, by
-the introduction of anatomical plates which were admirably executed. In
-the 16th century, the Emperor, Charles the 5th, ordered a consultation
-to be held by the divines of Salamanca, to determine whether it was
-lawful, in point of conscience, to dissect a dead body in order to learn
-its structure. In the 17th century, Cortesius, professor of anatomy at
-Bologna, and afterwards professor of medicine at Messina, had long begun
-a treatise on practical anatomy which he had an earnest desire to
-finish, but so great was the difficulty of prosecuting the study even
-in<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_33">{33}</a></span> Italy, that in 24 years he could only twice procure an opportunity
-of dissecting a human body, and even then with difficulty and in a
-hurry; whereas, he had expected to have done so, he says, once every
-year, according to the custom of the famous academies of Italy. In
-Muscovy, until very lately, both anatomy and the use of skeletons were
-positively forbidden; the first as inhuman, and the latter as
-subservient to witchcraft. Even the illustrious Luther was so biassed by
-the prejudices of his age, that he ascribed the majority of diseases to
-the arts of the devil, and found great fault with physicians when they
-attempted to account for them by natural causes. England acquired the
-bad fame of being the country of witches, and opposed almost insuperable
-obstacles to the cultivation of anatomy. Even at present the prejudices
-of the people on this subject are violent and deeply-rooted. The measure
-of that violence may be estimated by the degree of abhorrence with which
-they regard those persons who are employed to procure the subjects
-necessary for dissection. In this country there is no other method of
-obtaining subjects but that of exhumation: aversion to this employment
-may be pardoned: dislike to the persons who engage in it is natural, but
-to regard them with detestation, to exult in their punishment, to
-determine for themselves its nature and measure, and to endeavour to
-assume the power of inflicting it with their own hands, is absurd.
-Magistrates have too often fostered the prejudices of the people, and
-afforded them the means of executing their vengeance on the objects of
-their aversion. The press, with a few honourable exceptions, has
-uniformly allied itself with the ignorance and violence of the vulgar,
-and has done every thing in its power to inflame the passions which it
-was its duty to endeavour to soothe. It is notorious that the winter
-before last there was scarcely a week in which many of the papers did
-not contain the most exaggerated and disgusting statements: the appetite
-which could be gratified with<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_34">{34}</a></span> such representations was sufficiently
-degraded: but still more base was the servility which could pander to
-it.</p>
-
-<p>As one among many of the cases which illustrate this bad feeling, we may
-refer to that of Samuel Clark who was indicted at the Essex Quarter
-Sessions, in January, 1824, for feloniously stealing at Little Leighs,
-on the 26th of December, a woman’s shift, a bed-gown, a night-cap, and a
-pair of cotton stockings, the property of James Chinnery. It appeared in
-evidence, that a young woman the wife of a labouring man named James
-Chinnery, had been buried in Little Leighs Church-yard, on Sunday the
-21st of December. Previous to her death she expressed a wish to be
-interred in a night-cap, shift, bed-gown and cotton stockings, and her
-request had been complied with. The body was discovered on the morning
-of the 26th, in a ditch near the church-yard. A few rods from this spot
-was found a horse yoked to a chaise cart and tied to a tree. It appeared
-that “the box under the chaise cart was calculated to hold a couple of
-human bodies, when rolled up; and on examining it, a most offensive
-odour proceeded from it, as if it had been recently used in the
-prisoner’s <i>unhallowed</i> occupation.” The prisoner owned this horse and
-cart, and this is the whole of the evidence, at least, as stated in the
-report of the trial, which implicated him in the robbery of the grave.
-Under these circumstances, the counsel for the prisoner submitted to the
-Court that there was no case to go to the jury on three grounds:&#8212;first,
-that there was no proof of any asportation of the articles alleged to
-have been stolen: secondly, that supposing the asportavit made out, the
-prisoner could not be convicted of this offence, unless it was manifest
-that he had a felonious intention of taking the clothes and converting
-them to his own use; and thirdly, that, at all events, there was no
-evidence upon which the jury could safely be called upon to act, so as
-to implicate him in the alleged offence. The counsel for the prosecution
-in answer urged,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_35">{35}</a></span> first, that the finding of the body naked, after proof
-that it had been interred in the clothes mentioned in the evidence, was
-sufficient proof of asportation: and that even stripping the body
-without removing the clothes out of the grave, was, in law, enough to
-support the indictment: secondly, that although the primary intention of
-the prisoner might be, to steal the body only, yet, if the clothes were
-taken, the law would construe them to have been feloniously taken: that
-it might as well be said that although a man’s intention might be to
-steal a valuable jewel, yet it was no offence to take the casket in
-which it was contained: and thirdly, that whether the defendant was the
-party to whom guilt was imputed, was a question solely for the
-consideration of the jury. On the prisoner’s counsel insisting that his
-objections had not been answered, the Chairman overruled the two first
-objections, and then summed up the evidence, on which the jury, after
-deliberating a few minutes, found the prisoner <i>Guilty</i>. The verdict, it
-is recorded, <i>was received by the auditory with a general expression of
-pleasure</i>. The Court after animadverting in strong terms on the
-<i>abominable</i> offence of which the prisoner had been found guilty, said
-they were determined that he should not have an opportunity of pursuing
-his <i>odious</i> trade in this country, at least for some years, and
-<i>therefore</i> sentenced him to be transported for seven years. The account
-of this case is taken from the report of the trial contained in the
-Globe and Traveller newspaper of Jan. 20, 1824; a paper honorably
-distinguished for its endeavours to enlighten the public mind on this
-subject, not to foster its prejudices.</p>
-
-<p>In this case there was no sufficient evidence to convict the prisoner of
-the alleged offence: even if that evidence had been perfectly
-satisfactory, the punishment inflicted was unjust: the circumstance
-essential to constitute the felony did not exist: the Chairman, with an
-ignorant and vulgar mind, stretched the law to gratify ignorant and
-vulgar prejudice: he relied<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_36">{36}</a></span> upon the public feeling for protection in
-the illegal exertion of his power: he administered the law badly: he
-endeavoured to justify his conduct by loading the prisoner with odious
-epithets, and he did not miscalculate the feeling of his auditory: they
-witnessed the transaction “with a general feeling of pleasure.” This
-case exhibits but too faithfully, the spirit often displayed both by the
-magistracy and the people.</p>
-
-<p>Half a century ago there was in Scotland no difficulty in obtaining the
-subjects which were necessary to supply the schools of anatomy. The
-consequence was, that medicine and surgery suddenly assumed new
-life&#8212;started from the torpor in which they had been spell-bound&#8212;and
-made an immediate, and rapid, and brilliant progress. The new seminaries
-constantly sent into the world men of the most splendid abilities, at
-once demonstrating the excellence of the schools in which they were
-educated, and rendering them illustrious. Pupils flocked to them from
-all quarters of the globe, and they essentially contributed to that
-advancement of science which the present age has witnessed. In the 19th
-century the good people of Scotland, that intelligent, that cool and
-calculating, that most reasonable and thinking people, have thought
-proper to return to the worst feeling and the worst conduct of the
-darkest periods of antiquity. There is at present no offence whatever
-which seems to have such power to heat and to exalt into a kind of
-torrent the blood which usually flows so calmly and sluggishly in the
-veins of a Scotchman. The people of 1823 (to compare great things with
-small) emulate the spirit of those of their forefathers who “<i>were out
-in the forty-five</i>;” the object, to be sure, is somewhat different, but
-it is amusing to see the intensity and seriousness of the excitement.
-About twelve months ago an honest farmer of the name of Scott, who
-resides at Linlithgow, apprehended a poor wight who was pursuing his
-vocation, we presume, in the church-yard of that place; and this service
-appeared so meritorious to the people<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_37">{37}</a></span> in his neighbourhood, that they
-absolutely presented him with a piece of plate. In the winter sessions
-of 1822-3, a body was discovered on its way to the lecture-room of an
-anatomist in Glasgow, and, in spite of the exertions of the police,
-aided by those of the military, this gentleman’s premises and their
-contents, which were valuable, were entirely destroyed by the mob. For
-some time after this achievement, it was necessary to station a military
-guard at the houses of all the medical professors in that city. In the
-spring circuit of the justiciary court last year at Stirling, while the
-judges were proceeding to the court, the procession was assaulted with
-missiles; several persons were injured, and it was necessary to call in
-the protection of a military force. The object of the mob was, to
-inflict summary punishment on a man who was about to be tried for the
-exhumation of a body. We happen to know that the most disgraceful
-proceedings were some time ago instituted in that town against a young
-gentleman of respectable family and connections, who was in fact
-expatriated, and whose prospects in life were entirely changed, if not
-ruined, because he had too much honour to implicate his instructors in a
-transaction which would have put them to inconvenience, and in which
-they had engaged from a desire faithfully to discharge their duty to
-their pupils. Within the last five years three men were lodged in the
-county gaol at Haddington, charged with a trespass in the church-yard of
-that town. So enraged was the mob against them, that an attempt was made
-to force the gaol in order to get at them. On their way to the court the
-men were again attacked, forced from the carriage, and severely maimed.
-After examination they were admitted to bail; but, when set at liberty,
-they were assailed with more violence than ever, and were nearly killed.
-On the 29th of June, 1823, being Sunday, a most extraordinary outrage
-was perpetrated in the streets of Edinburgh. A coach containing an empty
-coffin and two men, was observed proceeding<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_38">{38}</a></span> along the south bridge. The
-people suspecting that it was intended to convey a body taken from some
-church-yard, seized the coach. It was with difficulty that the police
-protected the men from the assaults of the populace: the coach they had
-no power to preserve. The horses were taken from it, and together with
-the coffin, after having been trundled a mile and a half through the
-streets of the city, it was deliberately projected over the steep side
-of the mound, and smashed into a thousand pieces. The people following
-it to the bottom, kindled a fire with its fragments, and surrounded it
-like the savages in Robinson Crusoe, till it was entirely consumed. In
-this case there was no foundation for their suspicions. The coffin was
-intended to have conveyed to his house in Edinburgh the body of a
-physician who that morning had died in a cottage in the neighbourhood. A
-similar assault was some time ago made on two American gentlemen, who
-went to visit the Abbey of Linlithgow after nightfall. The churchyards
-of the “gude Scots” are now strictly guarded by men and dogs;
-watch-towers are erected within the grounds, and <i>mort-safes</i> as they
-are called, that is to say, strong iron frames are deposited in the
-ground over the graves. These people sometimes declare that they will
-put an end to anatomy, and certainly they are succeeding in the
-accomplishment of this menace as rapidly as they can well desire. The
-average number of medical students in Edinburgh is 700 each session. For
-several years past the difficulty of procuring subjects in that place
-has been so great, that out of all that number, not more than 150 or 200
-have ever attempted to dissect; and even these have latterly been so
-opposed in their endeavours to prosecute their studies that many of them
-have left the place in disgust. We have been informed by a friend, that
-he alone was personally acquainted with twenty individuals who retired
-from it at the beginning of last session, and who went to pursue their
-studies at Dublin, and we know that vast numbers followed their example<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_39">{39}</a></span>
-at the end of the winter course. The medical school at Edinburgh, in
-fact, is now subsisting entirely on its past reputation; in the course
-of a few years it will certainly be at an end, unless the system be
-changed. Let those who have the prosperity of the university at heart,
-and who have the power to protect it, consider this before it be too
-late: they may be assured it is no idle prediction; for we give them
-notice that it is at this moment the universal opinion and the current
-language of every well-informed medical man in England.</p>
-
-<p>An excellent system of anatomical plates, which has been well received
-by the profession, has lately been published by Mr. Lizars, a lecturer
-on anatomy and physiology, in Edinburgh. This gentleman states that he
-has been induced to undertake the work, in order to obviate the most
-fatal consequences to the public; as far, at least, as a reference to
-art, instead of nature is capable of obviating those consequences. He
-affirms, that the difficulty of obtaining instruction from nature has
-risen to such a pitch, owing to the extraordinary severity exercised by
-the legal authorities of the kingdom against persons employed in
-procuring subjects for dissection, as to threaten the ultimate
-destruction of medical and anatomical science. In his preface to the
-second part of his work, he apologizes to his readers for dividing one
-portion of it from another, with which it ought to have been connected;
-but states that he has been compelled to do so from the prejudices of
-the place, which prevented him for upwards of five months, from
-procuring a subject from which he might make his drawings. “In place of
-living,” he says, “in a civilized and enlightened period, we appear as
-if we had been thrown back some centuries into the dark ages of
-ignorance, bigotry, and superstition. Prejudices, worthy only of the
-multitude, have been conjured up and appealed to, in order to call forth
-popular indignation against those whose business it is to exhibit<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_40">{40}</a></span>
-demonstratively the structure of the human body, and the functions of
-its different organs. The public journals, from a vicious propensity to
-pander to the vulgar appetite for excitement, have raked up and
-industriously circulated stories of the exhumation of dead bodies,
-tending to exasperate and inflame the passions of the mob; and persons,
-who, by their own showing, are friendly to the interests of science,
-have, in the excess of their zeal that bodies should remain undisturbed
-in their progress to decomposition, laboured to destroy in this country,
-that art, whose province it is, to free living bodies from the
-consequences inseparable from accident and disease. And, which is worst
-of all, the prejudices of the multitude have been confirmed and rendered
-inveterate by the proceedings in our courts of justice, which have
-visited with the punishment due only to felons, the unhappy persons
-necessarily employed in the present state of the law, in procuring
-subjects for the dissecting-room.”</p>
-
-<p>He then goes on to state that, until anatomy be publicly sanctioned in
-Edinburgh, the school of medicine there can never flourish; that, upon
-the present system, young men obtain a degree or a diploma after a year
-or two of grinding, that is, of learning by rote the answers to the
-questions which the examiners are in the habit of putting to the
-candidates; that ignorant of the very elements of their profession
-numbers of persons thus educated annually go to the East and West
-Indies, and to the army and navy, where they have the charge of hundreds
-of their suffering fellow creatures, to whom they are in fact the
-instruments of cruelty and murder. In the preface to the 4th Part, he
-adds, that when Part II. was published, in the early part of the
-session, he took occasion to express his sorrow for the degraded state
-of his profession, and the threatened ruin of the Medical School of his
-native place, owing to the scarcity of subjects: that, for doing this,
-he has incurred considerable censure; that he regrets that he has yet
-found no reason to alter<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_41">{41}</a></span> his opinion, for the winter session is now
-near its conclusion, and, he candidly declares, that such has been the
-scarcity of material, that <i>no teacher of anatomy or surgery has been
-able either to follow the regular plan of his course, or to do his duty
-to his pupils</i>; the consequence of which has been, that many of the
-students have left the school in disgust, and gone either to Dublin or
-Paris; while a still greater number, deprived of the means of
-dissecting, have contented themselves with lectures or theories, and
-with grinding; and entered on the practice of their profession ignorant
-of its fundamental principles.</p>
-
-<p>Much of this opposition on the part of the people arises from the
-present mode of procuring subjects. Fortunately, there is in Great
-Britain no custom, no superstition, no law, and we may add, no prejudice
-against anatomy itself. There is even a general conviction of its
-necessity; there may be a feeling that it is a repulsive employment, but
-it is commonly acknowledged that it must not be neglected. The
-opposition which is made, is made not against anatomy, but against the
-practice of exhumation: and this is a practice which ought to be
-opposed. It is in the highest degree revolting; it would be disgraceful
-to a horde of savages; every feeling of the human heart rises up against
-it: so long as no other means of procuring bodies for dissection are
-provided, it must be tolerated; but, in itself, it is alike odious to
-the ignorant and the enlightened, to the most uncultivated and the most
-refined.</p>
-
-<p>But the capital objection to this practice is, that it necessarily
-creates a crime, and educates a race of criminals. Exhumation is
-forbidden by the law. It is, indeed, prohibited by no statute, either in
-England or in Scotland: in both it is an offence punishable at common
-law. There is a statute of James the First, which makes it felony to
-steal a dead body for the purpose of witchcraft; there is none against
-taking a body for the purpose of dissection. In the case of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_42">{42}</a></span> King
-against Lynn (1788), the Court decided that the body being taken for the
-latter purpose, did not make it less an indictable offence; and that it
-is without doubt cognizable in a criminal court, because it is an act
-“highly indecent; at the bare idea of which nature revolts.” It is
-punishable, therefore, by fine or imprisonment, or both: in Scotland it
-is also punishable by whipping, and even by transportation.</p>
-
-<p>We expected better things of America. We cannot express our astonishment
-and indignation, when we found that the state of New York has actually
-made it felony to remove a dead body from the place of sepulture for the
-purpose of dissection, without providing in any other mode for the
-schools of anatomy. This is worse than any thing that exists in any
-other part of the world. If these pages should meet the eye of any of
-our American brethren, we intreat them to read with attention, the facts
-which have been stated in the former part of this pamphlet, and to
-consider with seriousness the mischief they are doing. It will not be
-believed in England, that such scenes can have been witnessed in
-America, as were actually exhibited there scarcely a month ago. To
-satisfy our readers, however, that we do not misrepresent the state of
-things in that country, we transcribe the following accounts from <i>The
-New York Evening Post</i>, of <i>May</i> 20th:&#8212;“At the late Court of Sessions,
-Solomon Parmeli was indicted for a misdemeanor, in entering Potter’s
-Field, and removing the covers of two coffins deposited in a pit, and
-covered partly with earth. <i>The statute of this state making it a
-felony, to dig up or remove a dead human body with intent to dissect
-it</i>, did not embrace this case; because the prisoner had not dug up or
-removed the body. Mr. Schureman, the present keeper of Potter’s Field,
-suspected that some person had entered it for the purpose of removing
-the dead; and, after sending for two watchmen, and calling his faithful
-dog, he went to ascertain the fact. On arriving at the grave, he found
-his suspicion con<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_43">{43}</a></span>firmed; and requested the person concealed in the pit,
-to come out and show himself: no answer being given, Mr. Schureman sent
-his dog into the pit, and in the twinkling of an eye a tall stout fellow
-made his appearance, and took to his heels across the field. The night
-being dark, he might have effected his escape had it not been for the
-sagacity and courage of the dog, who pursued him for some distance; but
-at last came up with him, seized and held him fast until the arrival of
-Mr. Schureman and the watchmen who secured him. The jury convicted the
-prisoner, and the Court sentenced him to six months’ imprisonment in the
-Penitentiary. <i>The young gentlemen attending the Medical School of this
-city will take warning by this man’s fate. They may rest assured, that
-the keeper of Potter’s Field will do his duty, and public justice will
-he executed on any man, whatever may be his condition in life, who is
-found violating the law, and the decency of christian burial!</i>” The same
-paper gives the following account of a transaction, which took place at
-Hartford, in Connecticut, May 17. “Yesterday morning, two ladies were
-taking a walk in the South burying ground, when they discovered a
-tape-string, and a piece of cloth, which upon examination was found to
-be the piece that was laced upon Miss Jane Benton’s face, who came to
-her death by drowning, and was buried a few days since. The ladies then
-went to the grave, and found that it had been disturbed&#8212;that she was
-taken out of her coffin, and a rope around her neck. The circumstance
-has produced great excitement in the public mind; and every one is on
-the alert to discover the perpetrators of this unfeeling, brutal act.
-<i>The citizens turned out in a body yesterday, and interred the corpse
-again.</i>”</p>
-
-<p>These scenes are highly disgraceful, and disgraceful to all, though not
-<i>alike</i> to all, parties. We do not blame the Americans for abolishing
-the practice of exhumation; but we blame them for stopping there.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_44">{44}</a></span> We
-maintain, that it is both absurd and criminal, to make this practice
-felony, without providing in some other method for the cultivation of
-anatomy.</p>
-
-<p>In Great Britain, the law against the practice of exhumation is not
-allowed to slumber. There may be other cases which have not come to our
-knowledge; but we have ascertained that there have been 14 convictions
-for England alone during the last year. The punishments inflicted have
-been imprisonment for various periods, with fines of different sums. The
-fines in general are heavy, considering the poverty of the offenders.
-Several persons are, at this moment, suffering these penalties; among
-others, there is now in the gaol of St. Albans, a man who was sentenced
-for this offence to two years’ imprisonment and a fine of £.20. The
-period of his confinement has expired some time; but he still remains in
-prison, on account of his inability to pay the fine. Since the passing
-of the new Vagrant Act, it has been the common practice to commit these
-offenders to hard labour for various periods. Very lately, two men,
-convicted of this offence, were sent to the Tread-Mill, in Cold Bath
-Fields; one of whom died in one month after his commitment. It is an
-error to suppose that these punishments operate to prevent exhumation;
-their only effect is to raise the price of subjects: a little reflection
-will show that they can have no other operation. At present, exhumation
-is the only method by which subjects for dissection can be procured; but
-subjects for this purpose must be procured; and be the difficulties what
-they may, will be procured: diseases will occur, operations must be
-performed, medical men must be educated, anatomy must be studied,
-dissections must go on. Unless some other means for affording a supply
-be adopted; whatever be the law or the popular feeling, neither
-magistrates, nor judges, nor juries, will, or can put an entire stop to
-the practice. It is one which, from the absolute<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_45">{45}</a></span> necessity of the case,
-must be allowed. What is the consequence? So long as the practice of
-exhumation continues, a race of men must be trained up to violate the
-law. These men must go out in company for the purpose of nightly
-plunder, and plunder of the most odious kind, tending in a peculiar and
-most alarming measure to brutify the mind, and to eradicate every
-feeling and sentiment worthy of a man. This employment becomes a school
-in which men are trained for the commission of the most daring and
-inhuman crimes. Its operation is similar, but much worse than the
-nightly banding to violate the game laws, because there is something in
-the violation of the grave, which tends still more to degrade the
-character and to harden the heart. This offence is connived at, nay, it
-is rewarded; these men are absolutely paid to violate the law; and paid
-by men of reputation and influence in society. The transition is but too
-easy to the commission of other offences in the hope of similar
-connivance, if not of similar reward.</p>
-
-<p>It is an odious thing that the teachers of anatomy should be brought
-into contact with such men: that they should be obliged to employ them,
-and that they should even be in their power; which they are to such a
-degree, that they are obliged to bear with the wantonness of their
-tyranny and insult. All the clamour against these men, all the
-punishment inflicted on them, only operate to raise the premium on the
-repetition of their offence. This premium the teachers of anatomy are
-obliged to pay, which these men perfectly understand, who do not at all
-dislike the opposition which is made to their vocation. It gives them no
-unreasonable pretext for exorbitancy in their demands. In general they
-are men of infamous character; some of them are thieves, others are the
-companions and abettors of thieves. Almost all of them are extremely
-destitute. When apprehended for the offence in question, the teachers of
-anatomy are<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_46">{46}</a></span> obliged to pay the expenses of the trial, and to support
-their families while they are in prison; whence the idea of immunity is
-associated, in these men’s minds, with the violation of the law, and
-when they do happen to incur its penalties, they practically find that
-they and their families are provided for, and this provision comes to
-them in the shape of a reward for the commission of their offence. The
-operation of such a system on the minds of the individuals themselves is
-exceedingly pernicious, and is not a little dangerous to the community.</p>
-
-<p>Moreover, by the method of exhumation, the supply after all is scanty;
-it is never adequate to the wants of the schools; it is of necessity
-precarious, and it sometimes fails altogether for several months. But it
-is of the utmost importance that it should be abundant, regular, and
-cheap. The number of young men who come annually to London for the
-purpose of studying medicine and surgery, may be about a thousand. Their
-expenses are necessarily very considerable while in town; they have
-already paid a large sum for their apprenticeship in the country; the
-circumstances of country practitioners, in general, can but ill afford
-protracted expenses for their sons in London; few of them stay a month
-longer than the time prescribed by the College of Surgeons. But the
-short period they spend in London is the only time they have for
-acquiring the knowledge of their profession. If they mis-spend these
-precious hours, or if the means of employing them properly be denied
-them, they must necessarily remain ignorant for life. After they leave
-London they have no means of dissecting. We have seen that it is by
-dissecting alone, that they can make themselves acquainted even with the
-principles of their art; that without it they cannot so much as avail
-themselves of the opportunities of improvement, which experience itself
-may offer, nor, without the highest temerity, perform a single
-operation. We have seen that occasions suddenly occur, which<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_47">{47}</a></span> require
-the prompt performance of important and difficult operations; we have
-seen that, unless such operations are performed immediately, and with
-the utmost skill, life is inevitably lost. In many such cases there is
-no time to send for other assistance. If a country practitioner (and
-most of these young men go to the country) be not himself capable of
-doing what is proper to be done, the death of the patient is certain. We
-put it to the reader to imagine what the feelings of an ingenuous young
-man must be, who is aware of what he ought to do, but who is conscious
-that his knowledge is not sufficient to authorise him to attempt to
-perform it, and who sees his patient die before him, when he knows that
-he might be saved and that it would have been in his own power to save
-him, had he been properly educated. We put it to the reader to conceive
-what his own sensations would be, were an ignorant surgeon, with a
-rashness more fatal than the criminal modesty of the former, to
-undertake an important operation. Suppose it were a tumour, which turned
-out to be an aneurism; suppose it were a hernia, in operating on which
-the epigastric artery were divided, or the intestine itself wounded;
-suppose it were his mother, his wife, his sister, his child, whom he
-thus saw perish before his eyes, what would the reader then think of the
-prejudice which withholds from the surgeon that information without
-which the practice of his profession is murder?</p>
-
-<p>The study of anatomy is a severe and laborious study; the practice of
-dissection is on many accounts highly repulsive: it is even not without
-danger to life itself.<a id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> To men of clear understandings, to those
-especially of a philosophical turn of mind, the pursuit is its own
-reward; they are so fully satisfied that the more it is cultivated the
-more satisfaction it will afford, that they need no stimulus to induce
-them to undergo the drudgery. But this is by no means the case with<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_48">{48}</a></span>
-ordinary minds. The fatigue and disgust of the dissecting-room are
-appalling to them, and they need the stimulus of necessity to urge them
-to the task. The court of examiners of the College of Surgeons requires
-from the candidates for surgical diplomas certificates that they have
-gone through at least two courses of dissections; the examiners at
-Apothecaries’-hall do not require such certificates. The consequence is,
-that many young men content themselves with attending lectures, and with
-passing their examinations at Apothecaries’-hall, and do not apply for a
-diploma at the College of Surgeons. This single fact is sufficient to
-demonstrate to the public that, instead of throwing obstacles in the way
-of dissection, it is a duty which they owe to themselves to afford every
-possible facility to its practice, and to hold out to every member of
-the profession, the most powerful inducements to engage in it, by
-rewarding with confidence those who cultivate anatomy, by making
-excellence in anatomy indispensable to all offices in dispensaries and
-hospitals, and by thus rendering it impossible for any one who is
-ignorant of anatomy, to obtain rank in his profession. When a candidate
-presents himself for a diploma in Denmark, in his first trial he is put
-into a room with a subject, a case of instruments, and a memorandum, and
-informed that he is to display the anatomy of the face and neck, or that
-of the upper extremity or that of the lower extremity: that by the
-anatomy is to be understood, the blood-vessels, nerves and muscles; and
-that as soon as he has accomplished his task, the professors will attend
-his summons to judge of his attainments. These professors are the true
-examiners!</p>
-
-<p>We shall have entered into the discussion of this subject to little
-purpose, if we have not produced in the minds of our readers a deep
-conviction, that anatomy ought to form an essential part of medical
-education; that anatomy cannot be studied without the practice of
-dissection; that dissection cannot be practised without<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_49">{49}</a></span> a supply of
-subjects, and that the manner in which that supply is obtained in
-England is detestable and ought immediately to be changed.</p>
-
-<p>The plan we would propose to substitute is the following:&#8212;</p>
-
-<p>1. That the bodies of those persons who die in all infirmaries and
-hospitals throughout the kingdom, <i>unclaimed by immediate relatives</i>, be
-appropriated to the purpose of anatomy.</p>
-
-<p>2. That the bodies of those persons who die in all work-houses and
-poor-houses be appropriated to the same purpose.</p>
-
-<p>3. That the bodies of those persons who die in all houses of correction,
-in all prisons, and in the hulks, be thus appropriated.</p>
-
-<p>An objection may be anticipated to such an appropriation of the bodies
-of those who die in infirmaries and hospitals. And it is admitted, that
-in the present state of public feeling it would not be right thus to
-appropriate the bodies of <i>all</i> who die in those public charities. But
-this is not proposed: what is proposed is to appropriate to this use the
-bodies of those <small>ONLY</small> <i>who die unclaimed by immediate relatives</i>. No
-reasonable objection can be urged to this measure thus guarded. No one
-who has not inquired into the subject can have any conception of the
-number of persons who die in the public hospitals in London, unvisited
-by friends during life, unclaimed by them after death. Surely to devote
-to this use the bodies of those who die under such circumstances can
-inflict no wound on any private individual&#8212;can violate no public right.
-Still there is one objection to the measure which is specious but not
-solid. It is urged that it might be the means of deterring this class of
-persons from entering the hospitals. The answer to this objection is
-complete, because it is an answer derived from experience. The measure
-has been actually adopted, and found in practice to be unattended with
-this result: it was tried in Edinburgh<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_50">{50}</a></span> and the hospital was as full as
-it is at present: it is universally acted on in France, and the
-hospitals are always crowded.</p>
-
-<p>It has been stated that this plan has been tried in Edinburgh, and that
-experience has proved its efficacy. It was, in fact, adopted in that
-city with perfect success more than a century ago. In the Council
-Register for 1694, it is recorded that all unclaimed dead bodies in the
-charitable institutions or in the streets, were given for dissection to
-the College of Surgeons, to one or two of its individual members, and to
-the professor of anatomy. This regulation, at that period, excited no
-opposition on the part of the people, but effectually answered the
-desired object. All the medical schools on the continent are supplied
-with subjects, by public authority, in a similar manner. The following
-account of the mode in which those of Paris in particular are supplied,
-has been obtained from the gentleman who is at the head of the
-anatomical department in that city. It is stated; 1. That the faculty of
-medicine at Paris is authorized to take from the civil hospitals, from
-the prisons, and from dépôts of mendicity, the bodies which are
-necessary for teaching anatomy. 2. That a gratuity of eight-pence is
-given to the attendants in the hospitals for each body. 3. That upon the
-foundation by the National Convention, of schools of health, the
-statutes of their foundation declare, that the subjects necessary for
-the schools of anatomy shall be taken from the hospitals, and that since
-this period, the council of hospitals, and the prefect of police, have
-always permitted the practice. 4. That M. Breschet, chief of the
-anatomical department of the faculty of Paris, sends a carriage daily to
-the different hospitals, which brings back the necessary number of
-bodies: that this number has sometimes amounted to 2,000 per annum, for
-the faculty only, without reckoning those used in L’Hôpital de la Pitié,
-but that since the general attention which has recently been bestowed
-upon pathologic<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_51">{51}</a></span> anatomy, numbers of bodies are opened in the civil and
-military hospitals, and that the faculty seldom obtain more than 1,000
-or 1,200. 5. That, besides the dissections by the faculty of medicine,
-and those pursued in L’Hôpital de la Pitié, theatres of anatomy are
-opened in all the great hospitals, for the pupils of those
-establishments: that in these institutions anatomy is carefully taught,
-and that pupils have all the facilities for dissection that can be
-desired. 6. That the price of a body varies from four shillings to eight
-shillings and sixpence. 7. That after dissection, the bodies are wrapt
-in cloths, and carried to the neighbouring cemetery, where they are
-received for ten-pence. 8. That the practice of exhumation is abolished:
-that there are insurmountable obstacles to the return to that system,
-and that bodies are never taken from burial grounds, without an order
-for exhumation, which is given only when the tribunals require it for
-the purpose of medico-legal investigations. 9. That though the people
-have an aversion to the operations of dissection, yet they never make
-any opposition to them, provided respect be paid to the laws of decency
-and salubrity, on account of the deep conviction that prevails of their
-utility. 10. That the relatives of the deceased seldom or never oppose
-the opening of any body, if the physicians desire it. That all the
-medical students in France, with scarcely any exception, dissect, and
-that that physician or surgeon who is not acquainted with anatomy, is
-universally regarded as the most ignorant of men.</p>
-
-<p>To the other parts of the plan proposed above for supplying the
-anatomical schools in Great Britain, there appears to be no objections
-whatever. No one can object to such a disposal of the bodies of those
-who die in prisons; no one can reasonably object to such a disposal of
-the bodies of those who die in poor-houses. These persons are pensioners
-upon the public bounty: they owe the public a debt: they have been
-supported by the public during life; if, therefore, after<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_52">{52}</a></span> death they
-can be made useful to the public, it is a prejudice, not a reason&#8212;it is
-an act of injustice, not the observance of a duty, which would prevent
-them from becoming so. It is true that many of these persons are honest
-and respectable; and have been reduced to indigence by misfortune: were
-they all so it would not alter the state of the argument. Some
-concession and co-operation on the part of the public, for this great
-public object, is indispensable, without which nothing can be done: but
-if any concession be made, it can be made with respect to this class of
-persons better than any other, because it can be made with less
-violation of public feeling. Nor is any indignity either intended or
-offered to these persons. They are appropriated to this service not
-because they are poor, but because they are friendless: because, that
-is, no persons survive them who take such an interest in their fate as
-to be rendered unhappy by this disposal of their remains. That they are
-without friends is no good reason why their memory should be treated
-with indignity; but it is a good reason, it is the best possible reason
-why they should be selected for this public service. Poverty, it is
-true, is a misfortune: poverty, it is true, has terror and pain enough
-in itself: no legislature ought by any act to increase its wretchedness;
-but the measure here proposed is pregnant with good to the poor, and
-would tend more than can be estimated to lessen the misery of their
-condition. For it would give knowledge to the lowest practitioners of
-the medical art; that is, to the persons who are at present lamentably
-deficient, and into whose hands the great bulk of the poor fall. And,
-after all, the true question is, whether the surgeon shall be allowed to
-gain knowledge by operating on the bodies of the dead, or driven to
-obtain it by practising on the bodies of the living. If the dead bodies
-of the poor are not appropriated to this use, their living bodies must
-be&#8212;and will be. The rich will always have it in their power to select,
-for the performance of an operation,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_53">{53}</a></span> the surgeon who has signalized
-himself by success: but that surgeon, if he have not obtained the
-dexterity which ensures success, by dissecting and operating on the
-dead, must have acquired it by making experiments on the living bodies
-of the poor. There is no other means by which he can possibly have
-gained the necessary information. Every such surgeon who has attained
-deserved eminence, must have risen to it through the suffering which he
-has inflicted, and the death which he has brought upon hundreds of the
-poor. What would be the immediate and constant effect of an abolition of
-the practice of dissecting the dead? It would be to convert poor-houses
-and public hospitals into so many schools where the surgeons, by
-practising on the living bodies of the poor, would learn to operate on
-those of the rich with safety and dexterity. Thus the poor would be
-tortured, and many of them would be put to death in order that the rich
-might be saved from pain and danger. This would be the certain and
-inevitable result&#8212;this would indeed be to treat this class of the
-people with real indignity and horrible injustice, and proves how
-possible it is to show an apparent consideration for the poor, and yet
-practically to abuse them in the most cruel manner.</p>
-
-<p>The plan now proposed for remedying the evils which have been stated
-would accomplish the object easily and completely: it would inflict no
-injury on any private individual: it would do no violence to the public
-feeling: it would render the dread of anatomy, as far as that dread were
-really operative, directly beneficial to the community: it would
-terminate at once the evils of the present system: it would put an end
-to the education of daring and desperate violators of the law: it would
-tranquillize the public mind: the dead would rest undisturbed: the
-sepulchre would be sacred, and all the horrors which the imagination
-connects with its violation would cease for ever.</p>
-
-<p>We submit these observations to the calm and serious consideration of
-our countrymen. We address<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_54">{54}</a></span> them especially to the members of our
-legislature. Upon the attention of the latter we would particularly urge
-this further consideration, the importance of which they well know how
-to estimate. In consequence of the difficulty of procuring subjects in
-England, every medical student in Great Britain who can possibly afford
-the time now goes to Paris to perfect himself in anatomy. Accordingly
-the number of English students in Paris is already immense: that number
-increases rapidly every year: it increases by the desertion of the
-schools in Edinburgh and London. The consequence is obvious, and will be
-surely and deeply felt in a few years. Anatomy will be neglected in
-England, and for this indispensable branch of knowledge England will
-become entirely dependent on France. There cannot be a doubt that there
-is good sense enough among the people of England to submit to whatever
-regulations may be necessary to prevent evils so serious and so fatal,
-provided such regulations are framed in a proper spirit, and observed
-with a due regard to decorum, and it is certain that those persons who
-co-operate to establish these regulations will ultimately receive, as
-they will deserve, the gratitude of their country.</p>
-
-<p class="fint">FINIS.</p>
-
-<p class="fint2">T. C. Hansard, Pater-noster-row Press.</p>
-
-<div class="footnotes"><p class="cb">FOOTNOTES:</p>
-
-<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> A winter never passes without proving fatal to several
-students who die from injuries received in dissection.</p></div>
-
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