THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. ART. I.-A Bill for preventing the unlawful Disinterment of Human Bodies, and for regulating Schools of Anatomy. 1829. OUR UR medical readers will probably think that the following statement, on a most important subject, consists of little more than truisms, and that we are taking great pains to enforce what nobody doubts. Our answer is, that we are not writing to them, but to our legislators and to the public; and if they imagine that these are sufficiently impressed with the importance and true bearings of the question which we are about to explain, they know little of the state of feeling and opinion on the subject. They will think, too, that we have treated the subject in a way far too homely; that we depend for success on propositions as to which the public, if they will but reflect, know as much as ourselves; that we ought to have entered into professional details, and made our readers stare by learning and hard words,but here again we differ from them. We are convinced that, in the present case, the most homely arguments are the most home, and that the public will be most likely to be moved by considerations which they have but to open their eyes in order to appreciate,—which require only to be stated to be acknowledged,-which, like many other things, have ceased to impress men strongly only by reason of their familiarity. It is of little consequence to medical men, but of vital consequence to the public, that the former should be well instructed in their profession,-as well, at least, as is consistent with the difficulty of the art, the brevity of life, and the ordinary mediocrity of the human mind. To medical men it is important only in as much as it is more gratifying to practise an art with the consciousness of knowledge than with that of ignorance, and pleasanter to assuage pain, restore health, and rescue life, than to witness suffering without the power of relief, and disease which they cannot arrest. But further than this it is of no importance to them at all, not even with a view to lucre; for whether they be well or ill educated, knowing and skilful, or ignorant and incompetent, they are equally sure, as a class, of employment and maintenance. The public cannot tell the difference, and even if if that were otherwise, they could not help themselves. A sick man must employ either nobody, or old women and quacks-or educated medical men with all their imperfections; and, objectionable as the latter often are, such is the timidity of sickness, the anxiety for relief, and the disposition to lean on other minds when our own are too weak to stand alone, that few sufferers will consider this alternative, and not conclude in their favour. But, of what importance is it to the public, that those to whom they apply for relief should be so instructed as to be able to afford it. It may be painful to witness suffering which cannot be relieved, and disease which cannot be arrested, but how much worse is it to endure them? The public have no notion of the power of medical men in families where sickness is going on: the monks had less in the plenitude of their influence. An ignorant man to whom a family have given possession of their confidence (a mistake which people, with all their sagacity, are continually committing) may not only fail to do good, and inflict irreparable mischief, but may occasion a quantity of unnecessary alarm, trouble, expense, and sacrifice, which amount to as great an evil as sickness itself. If he pronounces some hidden part to be diseased, which requires a long, troublesome, and expensive mode of treatment, who is to gainsay him? The patient scarcely knows that he has such a part, or where it is placed, much less its healthy or diseased condition. The doctor only possesses the means of reconnoitring its state: whatever he reports, however false, is believed; and whatever he directs, must be done. He may tell his patient that his liver is too large, that his brain is soft (ramollissement de cerveau: in pathology this does not mean foolishness); or that disease has fixed on some organ, of which he never heard before, as his mucous membranes,'-and it is wonderful how the news will affect him. Give a disease a local habitation and a name,' and though it may be neither visible nor tangible, nor perceptible by any of his senses, it will fasten on his imagination, influence his feelings, and make him as docile as a lamb: the doctor may do any thing with him. Of what importance is it that persons possessed of so much power should have the knowledge necessary to use it properly! To relate all the blunders we have seen committed by ill-informed practitioners of medicine and surgery, lives lost, health ruined, limbs sacrificed, trifles mistaken for dangerous cases, and dangerous cases mistaken for trifles, measures employed which required the greatest sacrifices, and which turned out to be unnecessary and injurious to relate all these would require a thousand and one nights, and days beside. 6 Those who are behind the scenes, who have sense enough to perceive the truth, and candour enough to confess it, will ac knowledge knowledge that this statement is not overcharged. Not that medical men are more wrong-headed than others, for the same abundance of mistakes are committed in all the practical pursuits of life. Our servants, our tradesmen, our builders, our lawyers, are constantly committing blunders. One-third of the affairs of life are done wrong. The errors of medicine are only the ordinary errors of the human mind exemplified on a subject of extraordinary importance. In England, nine-tenths of the medical men practise both medicine and surgery; that is an undeniable fact; and it is equally certain, that to make a decent surgeon, requires not only anatomical instruction, but also the practice of dissection. It is as impossible to make a surgeon by showing him the dissected body, and expounding to him the various parts of which it consists, as it is to make a painter by showing him pictures, or a carpenter, by taking him into a workshop to see the men bore, nail, plane, and saw. The painter must acquire dexterity in the use of his brush; the carpenter must handle his chisel, his adze, his plane, and his saw; and the surgeon must not only see the parts dissected, but he himself must dissect them again and again, and rehearse those operations on the dead body, which he will have to perform on the living body in the sick chamber, the cockpit, the field of battle, or the hospital. The medical and surgical students who come annually to London for this kind of education, are in number about eight hundred or one thousand. To instruct them in the knowledge of anatomy and the art of dissection, the only legal means are the bodies of executed murderers, which scarcely amount to twelve annually throughout England. In London, a year sometimes passes without the anatomical schools receiving a single body from this source, and they have rarely received more than one in a year. These are the only means which the feelings of the public, and the laws of the land, afford for the anatomical education of a thousand students; and medical men have been driven to this alternative, either to abandon the practice of dissection altogether, and allow surgery to relapse into its state a thousand years ago, or to procure bodies by illegal and repulsive means. It is well for the public that they have preferred the latter; but the methods adopted are of the most abominable kind. Ruffiaus called Resurrection-men (the blasphemy of the name is forgotten in its familiarity) gain a precarious and dangerous livelihood by breaking open graves, robbing them of their recent inhabitants, and selling the produce of their depredations to the teachers of anatomy. To what an extent such pursuits may brutalize those employed in them, we have lately had appalling instances in B 2 Burke Burke and Hare. Whenever they are detected, they are the objects of legal punishment and popular fury. No wonder-but, however natural these feelings may be, and however reasonable these laws, the study of anatomy is thereby prohibited. The following curious particulars were communicated before the Anatomical Committee by three resurrection-men. Who can help smiling at the way in which these wretches estimate their calling? It seems that they do not consider themselves as thieves; and the thieves proper are ambitious to be called resurrection men: First Resurrection-Man.-" Every ground in London is watched by men put into them at dark, who stop till day-light, with fire-arms. You are subject to be shot; and if you are taken, the parish prosecutes you, and you may get six or twelve months imprisonment. A man may make a good living at it (stealing bodies) if he is a sober man, and acts with judgment. There is a great many of them that profess to get subjects that I suppose do not get four subjects in a twelvemonth; a great many of them that has lately got into the business, and have almost been the ruin of it. The greatest part of the men that have lately got into the business, they are nothing but petty common thieves. Being out late at night, if they are met by the police, they can say they are out getting subjects for the surgeons. They have usually a horse and cart. I should suppose there are at present in London between forty or fifty men that have the name of raising subjects, and that there is but two more, besides myself, that get their living by it. If you are friends with a grave digger, the thing will be all right to know what bodies to get-if you are not, you cannot get them. The bodies I have got was twenty-three in four nights. It was only one year I got one hundred. Perhaps the next year I did not get above fifty or sixty. They would not mind shooting a man as dead as a robber if they caught him in a churchyard. If you were pointed out that you are a resurrection-man, they are prejudiced against you." [An odd taste!] "Once, I suppose I was not above two yards from the man that shot at me. It was a little bit of ground behind a chapel. They laid by in the chapel for me and another man. We were after two subjects. When I go to work, I like to get those of poor people buried from the workhouses, because, instead of working for one subject, you may get three or four. I do not think, during the time I have been in the habit of working for the schools, I got half a dozen of wealthier people." "Of the other men who are employed in raising bodies, how many are there you would consent to go out with?" "Not above two or three." "Why would you not go out with the others?" "Because they are all thieves, and they never supplied the schools in their lives: they get a subject or two, and call themselves resurrection-men." [What odd forms the last weakness of a noble mind may take !] Second Resurrection-Man, formerly the captain of the only band in London, now retired from practice." The course I should take would be to have the workhouse subjects: we can get them out of the burial-ground without any difficulty whatever. I am satisfied that there are three or four workhouses that would supply every subject that would be wanting. That was the point I laid down before an honourable member who consulted me, but he would not consent to it. I believe the custom of claiming bodies as those of relatives is constantly done. I never did so myself. I did attempt it once myself, but was detected. It was at St. John's; and we should have obtained the body, but a committee was sitting that evening of the parish, which was sitting at the workhouse where the body lied to be owned. The constable happened to come into the workhouse at the time, and he knew me, and that prevented it, or else we should have certainly had the body. I left off in 1820: to be sure I did go out at different times afterwards, but then we had our men shot away from us, and it was very dangerous. On one occasion one man was shot in four places, and we took him away with us: to be sure I had never gone out with him before, and he was an incautious hand. Third Resurrection-Man.-" We could not obtain the rich so easily because they were buried so deep." "If the law were altered in the manner alluded to, would you continue the practice of exhumation ?" "No, I would never open a grave."-See Evidence of A. B., and C. D., and F. G., before the Select Committee of Anatomy. But this mode of procuring bodies led to an evil which few pe.haps had anticipated; the increasing demand for them, from the increasing number of students, and the increasing sense of the necessity for anatomical knowledge, together with the dangers to which resurrection-men were exposed, raised the price of bodies from two guineas to ten, or sometimes even to sixteen, so that the price became a temptation to murder. Sir Astley Cooper, on being asked what he thought of resurrection-men, answered, There is no crime they would not commit; if they imagined that I should make a good subject they would not have the smallest scruple, if they could do the thing undiscovered, to make a subject of me.'-Sir Henry Halford said, 'When there is a difficulty in obtaining bodies, and their value is so great, you absolutely throw a temptation in the way of these men to commit murder for the purpose of selling the bodies of their victims.' Sir Henry's prophetic opinion was given in May, 1828, and a few months afterwards the public were appalled by the discovery of the anatomical murders at Edinburgh. But although these are the only instances that have been detected, there can be little doubt that similar deeds had been done before, and are perpetrated still. An eminent surgeon tells us, that when he was young in practice, and had leisure to keep up his anatomical knowledge by dissection, he had a dissecting-room in his own house, |