ANATOMY.
THE Report of the Committee for inquiring into the manner of obtaining subjects for dissection has been published. It has adopted the views of several enlightened advocates of the necessity and utility of applying to this great object the unclaimed bodies of persons dying in hospitals and poor-houses. If relatives do not think proper to claim a dead person for burial, it cannot be sup- posed that their feelings will be much aggrieved by the dissection of his body : if there are no relatives, there will be no persons whose feelings are to be consulted. It is with pain that we observed in the pages of a contemporary whom we read and respect, an attempt to ridicule and discountenance the suggestions of the Committee. The argument of injustice is not tenable for a moment—it is a con- dition on entering the institution ; and we may observe, as most persons generally hope and believe that they shall live on entering an hospital, there are few who would reject present relief on ac- count of a condition contingent upon death and utter desertion. As for the prejudice which would be exerted against hospitals and surgeons by the enactment, we believe that, on the contrary, all such prejudices would subside. The regularity, decency, and quiet of the whole proceeding, would have this effect. At present, prejudice, bitter and strong, is kept alive by the violation of the church-yard, by the employment of felonious plunderers of the dead, by the discovery of the remains of mortality in disgust- ing situations, and the occasional exposure and detection of cases, aggravated by insult to the dead and outrage to the living. The example of Paris has guided the Committee : there the attachment of relations is perhaps stricter and more tender than in London, yet no complaint has ever been made of the state of the law in that capital ; on the contrary, it is never thought or heard of; and the subject of dissection, or the supply of bodies, is never discussed out
of the precincts of the anatomical schools. The contemporary to whom we have alluded proceeds in a style which we grieve to find could possibly be adopted by a writer at this time of day.
"It appears to us that the only objection to the plan of the committee is, that the principle of it is founded in injustice. Why afflict every pau-
per with the dread that if he should die in the workhouse, and his loving wife decline to claim the body, dissected he is sure to be ? This would be a most unconstitutional inroad on the liberty of the subject. The
shore of England, by this new law' instead of being a sacred soil, which
when the foot of a slave touches he becomes free, would become one, which when he lights upon he becomes liable to be dissected. No stranger could visit uslwithout having the fear of Guy's Hospital before his eyes. If by any accident he should be tossed from the top of a Dover coach, break his neck, and end his days in Southwark workhouse, he would be sure to have his bones exhibited in tie adjacent street. Nothing could save him from this unexpected martyrdom to science. Friend, perhaps, he had none within a thousand miles—his family, perhaps his name,
would be unknown ; therefore, cut up he would unquestionably be. The
poor man also, under any circumstances of temporary distress, or acci- dental casualty, never could eat his beef in the workhouse, nor drink his gruel in the hospital, without knowing that he was feeding himself for the surgeons, The idea is horrible, and is calculated, in case of any panic, or any visitation of extreme distress in the manufacturing towns, to lead
to dreadful acts of retaliation. The pauper weavers would rise up ut ma.w, and murder all the surgeons with their own scalpels—that is, dis-• sect them in self-defence.
"This law, therefore, on public gronnds, will not answer. We think a much better one might easily be devised, and one that would lead to no popular commotion, but, on the contrary, might be attended with very beneficial effects. Suppose that every person who enters an anatomical school should become bound to secure his body to the school at his death.
For the pleasure, therefore, of cutting up others, he would compensate the public with the benefit of his Own body. The effect of this law would be most salutary. We would have fewer surgeons—or, rather, fewer
students of anatomy, who are mere amateurs in dissecting, and of which amateurs there is at present by far too numerous a breed. The real en- thusiast of science—the only men who do make good Surgeons—would, in this case, be secured, and the silly puppy of an apothecary, who now deems it his duty to mangle in order that he may know the opera- tion of his future doses of poison, would be scared by his fears from the school of anatomy."
If medical and surgical assistance could only be procured from real enthusiasts in science, it would be as difficult to find a sur- geon as in some parts of South America, where they have to travel three or four hundred miles to have a bone set. Instruc- tion in the healing art requires a steady application of time and talent, for which enthusiasm is by no means necessary: the ex- pectation of living by means of the acquirement is enough. The " silly puppy of an apothecary" who dispenses " doses of poison," is a more injurious character qua apothecary than surgeon; for in his latter capacity, it seems, he only" mangles" the dead—in the other he murders the living. The writer should have said we would have "fewer apothecaries." In all this matter, people seem to forget that the only party concerned is the living public. Surgeons would make as much money by their ignorance as by their skill ; nay more, for, like clumsy tinkers, awkward surgeons would make one hole while they mended another. The Legislature ought to say, " The surgeons must have sub- jects whenever they want them ; and it is our duty to contrive a method by which they may procure them decently."
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