Part 2

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. 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.