Part 3

To this plan there is but one objection, viz. that it is making the bodies of the poor public property. The answer is, that the limitation in the proposed law, which the objection does not notice, entirely removes the weight of that objection. Though no maxim can be more indisputable than that those who are supported by the public die in its debt, and that their remains at least, might, without injustice, be converted to the public use, yet it is not proposed to dispose in this manner of the bodies of all the poor: but only of that portion of the poor who die unclaimed and without friends, and whose appropriation to this public service could, therefore, afford pain to no one. If any concession and co-operation on the part of the public, for this great public object is to be expected, and without concession and co-operation nothing can be done, it is not easy to conceive of any plan which requires less public concession or implies less violation of public feeling. In point of fact it would put no indignity, it would inflict no injury on the poor; it is the rejection of it that would really and practically be unjust and cruel. The 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 will and must be. The rich will always have it in their power to select, for the performance of an operation, the surgeon who has already 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 rises to 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. The effect of the entire abolition of the practice of dissecting the dead, would be, to convert poor-houses and public hospitals into so many schools where the surgeon, by practising on the poor, would learn to operate on the rich with safety and dexterity. This would be the certain and inevitable result: and this, indeed, would be to treat them with real indignity, and horrible injustice; and proves, how possible it is to show an apparent consideration for the poor, and yet practically to treat them in the most injurious and cruel manner.

Nor would the proposed plan be the means of deterring this class of people from entering the hospitals. There is something reasonable in the apprehension on which this objection is founded: but the answer to it is complete, because it is an answer, derived from experience, to an objection, which is merely a deduction from what is probable. The plan has been acted on, and found 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.

The great advantages of the plan are, that it would accomplish the proposed object, easily and completely, whereas the plan in operation effects it imperfectly and with difficulty; and it would put an immediate and entire stop to all the evils of the present system. At once it would put an end to the needless education of daring and desperate violators of the law. It would tranquillize the public mind. Their 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 have stated, that the plan has been tried. Experience has proved its efficacy. It was adopted with perfect success in Edinburgh 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. We have obtained from a friend in Paris, a gentleman who is at the head of the anatomical department in that city, the following account of the manner in which the schools of anatomy are supplied. It is stated; 1. That the faculty of medicine at Paris is authorized to take from the civil hospitals, from the prisons, and from the depôts 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 2000 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 1000 or 1200. 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 of 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 investigation. 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 regarged as the most ignorant of men.

It is time that the physicians and surgeons of England, should exert themselves to change a system which has so long retarded the progress of their science, and been productive of so much evil to the community. We are persuaded, that there is good sense enough, both in the people and in the legislature, to listen to their representations. We would advise them to avail themselves of the means they possess to communicate information to the people, and to make individual members of parliament acquainted with the subject. With this view we would recommend the whole body to act in concert, to appoint a committee for conducting the matter, and to petition parliament, as soon as they shall have made the nature of their claims, and the grounds on which they rest, more generally known. If they act in co-operation with each other, and pursue their object temperately, and steadily, we cannot but believe, that their efforts at no distant period, will be crowned with success.

FOOTNOTES:

Since the above was written, we have learned that this man has been recently liberated, and his fine remitted.

A winter never passes without proving fatal to several students who die from injuries received in dissection.