Part 26

'The occurrences of Burking in London having produced schemes for supplying the wants of anatomists by a compulsory appropriation of the poor, I, as an individual, protest against any law that would inflict so flagrant an injustice on those, who suffer enough already, without any further addition.

'A publication has been made of an Anatomy Bill, which I suppose to be a copy of that which has been brought into the House of Commons this Session, under the auspices of the same member (Mr. Warburton) who introduced the former one. In the preamble to this Bill it is asserted, that the anatomy of the human body is necessary for the remedy of diseases, and the performance of surgical operations. Now, that this is unquestionable, some reasonable doubts may be entertained, as I conceive, that dissections do not confer any extraordinary medical skill to those who perform them, is proved by all antiquity, from the days of Adam to the present time, the generations of which, I dare say, enjoyed quite as good or perhaps better health than modern ones have done; for if surgery was not practised anciently, how were the conflicting campaigns of the Grecians, Romans, &c. conducted, when there must have been surgical aid afforded to the wounded, or who among them would have engaged in a warfare, when the fracture of a limb might entail a tedious agony, and loss of life? It is not my object, however, to go into the nature of diseases or remedies for them here; but I may instance Hippocrates, the renowned physician of Greece, as to what he is reported to have known of human anatomy, though his skill in the treatment of diseases is undisputed; if, therefore, dissecting dead bodies were necessary, would he have been so eminent for his attainments, and the first methodical practitioner of medicine? No such thing; he must have been a mere empiric, and not the ensample of medical knowledge for every subsequent age. Not to mention professional quacks, whose factotum medicines, I believe, are never compounded through their dissecting dead bodies; but which are asserted to be cures for any disease excepting restoring sight to a blind eye. It is well known in this town [we believe Mr. Sleight alludes to the town of Boston in Lincolnshire], that a bone-setter residing in it, who has had no professional education that I am aware of, is, in cases of simple or compound fractures and luxated bones, as efficient an operator as any surgeon, and can as ably effect a cure. As to professional skill, I recollect it was reported of a medical man having treated a pregnant woman as dropsical[2]; so much did he know, it appears, about diseases. Again, in the Encyclopædia Perthensis, it is related, that a sow-gelder performed a Cesarean operation on his wife with success; that is, cutting the fœtus from the uterus, which from some impediment she was unable to give birth to, which operation saved her life. Now, what sort of an anatomist this sow-gelder was, if the relation be true, I need not say, as that will occur on the least reflection, but it shows he had sense enough to perform this most difficult operation, in a way that not one in a thousand surgeons in country practice, I believe, would succeed in doing.

'In Cobbett's Register for April, 1829, or something about that period, a letter appeared under the signature of W. Hornsey, M.D. North Shields, on the subject of the infamous body-selling Bill, which, from what I can now recollect of its contents, strongly disapproved of that measure, and stated how little the pursuit of anatomy had improved the treatment of diseases, especially that of consumption. This is corroborated from the hubbub about the cholera morbus, as if it were a complaint that had never appeared in the world till just now, though it is well known to be a disease that has infested India for ages, and if it were of the pestilential character attributed to it, would have swept away the natives of that part of the universe from the face of the earth ages ago, nor should we witness now shoals of Europeans flocking thither to make their fortunes, if setting foot on Asiatic soil was next to instant death; nor is its progress in England any credit to the medical profession, some of whom are evidently grasping at it as a god send to benefit the faculty, by frightening the public out of their wits, and setting in action the machinery of Boards of Health, some of the members of which may know as much about cholera morbus, as the Chinese of Scotch philosophy. Pshaw! doctors of the north, with all your dissecting--cannot you control Nature's volcano, nor grapple with diarrhœa, puking and spasms, either of which you would be ashamed to allow it to appear you could not treat efficiently, if Nature had any strength. It seems, that part first of the cholera morbus farce has concluded at Sunderland, and the Board of Health dissolved. But why so, good ex-members of it? Is not _health_ still to be dispensed, or has disease wholly vanished through your exertions? Happy must the people of Sunderland be, with such a miraculous invention as "A Board of Health," which throws the miracle-working German prince into the shade, and I suppose gives a hope, that the greatest of all the blessings of human life, an exemption from disease, are thus to be obtained! What need have we of anatomy or physic, when Boards of Health can be formed, and able to root out of the systems of mankind the horror of horrors, "_Cholera Morbus!_"'

We admit that the foregoing remarks have no immediate relevancy to the subject under our discussion; but on the other hand, we consider that no opportunity ought to be allowed to escape, by which one of the greatest and most prejudicial deceptions that has been practised upon the country, can be exposed in all its noxious and alarming consequences. If the cholera morbus question were confined, simply as a bugbear, to frighten a score of silly nervous people, it might pass over as wholly unworthy of any attention, and be suffered to live as long as a few unprincipled empirics found it their interests to keep it alive; but when it becomes a question, on which the actual welfare of the country rests, on which the ruin of thousands is made to depend; by which commerce is thrown into a state of stagnation, and the usual channels of industry so choked up, that misery and want stare us in the face, whithersoever we turn our eyes, and which are in themselves sufficient actually to produce, and to aggravate the very disease, which the sapient heads of the Board of Health have distinguished by the name of the cholera morbus--then it becomes the duty of every man, to use every exertion in his power to check the growing evil, to expose the infamous and selfish views of the propagators of the bugbear, and then leave them to the contempt and indignation of an offended and injured country. We should be justly accused of digression, were we here to enter into any further exposition of this subject; but we do hope that some spirited individuals will seriously and patriotically take up the matter, and so bring the unprincipled abettors of the cholera morbus plague before the tribunals of their country, that they themselves may no longer be allowed to be a plague, and that the _heads_ of the heads of the Boards of Health may be consigned over to the executioner of Newgate, to be dealt with by him as seemeth best in his eyes.

'There is no occasion in my opinion,' Mr. Sleight proceeds, 'to argue for human bodies being hacked, and cut up piecemeal for students' improvement; as the carcasses and extremities of old horses, cows, bulls, &c., would do quite as well, for familiarizing them to the use of the knife in operations, which I believe to be the principal object; as well as those of sheep, dogs, cats, rabbits, monkeys, &c., are sufficient for demonstrating the action and economy of Nature, as its principles are the same in the human and the brute creation,--as to the pulsation of the heart, the circulation of the blood, nervous system, &c., which for illustrating physiology would be quite sufficient; but, if anatomists are determined to have none other than human subjects, they and their pupils should be sent to the Sierra Leone settlement, where they might perhaps obtain them in abundance, and very cheap. Of all the world, this is the most proper place to locate the anatomical departments of the Scotch London University, King's College, and dissecting-schools; for at this pestilential place medical students would have to endeavour to preserve their own health, and I believe have to search more into the principles of sound medical treatment of diseases than they do in England; and thus be really useful in the cause of humanity to those of their fellow men, who are resident in that abode of death, as well as be prepared to cure diseases in a more skilful way than by the regimen of 'Buchan's Domestic Medicine,' which I once saw on a newly-commenced practitioner's table in a country village, a copy of which I bought for three shillings. As to replacing dislocated joints, there is not a tinker more bungling at mending a kettle, than some professional men are at setting them; nor is there a student who has passed his examinations, and is authorized to practise, who could use a knife, in the difficult case I have before mentioned, equal to the sow-gelder, but who if he attempted it, his hair would I dare say stand as erect as the quills of the fretful porcupine.

'The more dissections which students perform, can never make them expert operators, in cases of extracting a stone from the bladder, reducing a hernia with a knife, or cutting off a limb of a living subject; as their operations require, to become skilful at them, a more frequent practice than occurs in the course of a country surgeon's business, and when any do arise, the anxiety of the operator and array of professional attendance show what little confidence there is of success.

'The provisions of the "Anatomy Bill," as to an appropriation of subjects for dissection being _voluntary_ is very proper, as any attempt to make a compulsory one would be sure to fail; for those of the community who see a necessity for anatomical study being prosecuted by the use of the knife on human dead bodies, might by bequeathing their mortal remains when dead, as it is to be expected the members of the medical profession, would be the first to volunteer, afford such a supply of subjects as would be sufficient for the London anatomical schools; this being extended to country towns is quite out of the question, as I believe they would not be endured. So incensed would the public be against them, if subjects were forcibly furnished, that they would be upset very quickly, unless guarded by a park of artillery, but a dissecting practitioner of medicine would soon find his loss in the account of business, as many poor persons, I conceive, would rather suffer all that the pains of disease could inflict, than that their earthly remains should be compulsorily consigned to the dissecting-knife, for a little medicine. Vulgar prejudice cannot be pleaded as an impediment to those persons who think anatomy is necessary in promoting surgical skill, as no soul possessed of human feelings in any degree, would ever think of grasping, for anatomization, an individual who was averse from dissection, and selfishly reserve his body from the dissecting-knife, and allow the science of anatomy, so far as his good will to promote it extended, to go to the d--l; though this is precisely, I believe, the character of Scotch philosophy, to make anything subservient to its purpose, but is not disposed to make any sacrifice. I apprehend it is none but Scotch writers who, however intellectual or educated they may be, have had the insolence to invent the phrase, and call the aversion of the poor from dissection "a vulgar prejudice," and only select them as subjects for anatomists, as they have done to find out that the vitals of English labourers should be wasted by law and Gospel in providing means for sinecurists and titled pensioners to subsist on. Peasantry, indeed! They are not shot at like game, certainly; but if they can be induced to submit to be made brutes of, there seems to be no want of inclination in Scotch philosophy that they should; for so transfused does this villainous idea appear to be into the minds of some reading Englishmen, of "higher orders, lower orders, vulgar prejudice," &c., that a stupid fellow that I heard talking on the subject of Burking, who appeared to be what is called a gentleman farmer, said it was only from vulgar prejudice that the poor objected to be dissected; but when he was asked if he should like for his wife and daughter to be anatomized, he became silent, and stared as if he had been a Burked subject revived.

'The feelings which Britons have hitherto entertained, I hope will never be suppressed by a beastly indifference towards the disposing of the remains of the dead, to be cut up by beardless students, for the benefit of an anatomist's pocket, or to see, as I once heard one say, what _guts_, as he expressed it, are made of. The Anatomy Bill, however, will not, if it should become law, be what anatomists want, which is, subjects fresh, cheap, and by wholesale; though voluntarily this will never be the case, and is rather to prevent bodies being dissected which are murdered, by causing a certificate from a medical man--but I think any relative would be better--that the person deceased had died a natural death; for any one, unless he be an idiot, can know this as well as a doctor; and which, I propose, should also distinctly state the consent of the person it might refer to, that his or her body, when dead, should be dissected; though, except repealing so much of former enactments as to the illegality of possessing a dead human body, this bill, in my view, will not facilitate anatomical study by dissection, but otherwise, as it appears that bodies of murderers are to be interred at a cross highway, instead of being dissected, which has been considered a proper part of the punishment for that crime.

'The Creator of the universe and Father of mankind, under whose peculiar care the Israelites were, gave no direction to Moses relative to any dissection of them; whose infinite wisdom gave the almighty fiat, 'Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return,' and which has been responded in all ages, in the respect paid to the remains of departed life, and will continue to be so, as long as the feelings of human nature remain what they have been. Notwithstanding the discovery of Scotchmen, that it is only a vulgar prejudice, there have none come forward to authorise their brawny bodies to be dissected, nor ever will, so long as a parliament would create a law appropriating the poor. However, it would only be proper that any legislation compulsorily providing human subjects for dissection should be reserved for a reformed parliament, and let the country see how it will deal with the matter. But, come what may, it would be better that practical human anatomy should altogether cease; and rather would I see it to be the case, than that the feelings of the poor and friendless should be outraged, and they so degraded as to be reduced to a level with brutes; as ages after ages show that mankind can exist, and have existed equally as well as they do now, where anatomy was not practised at all, or even thought of, and that, too, in a period when the baiting a bull is considered as repugnant to humanity, and the thrashing of a horse or ass punished by fine or imprisonment.

'In concluding these brief reflections, I have just to observe, as to a publication purporting to be a memorial from the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons, (a pompous title truly!) to the Home Secretary of State, that it is sickening to read such a whining inuendo to his Majesty's government to make a dead body law; though I would say to those who appear to have signed it, never mind continental examples, of which we see enough of the evil of copying in the beggarly condition of the working people, and an enormous national debt, &c., &c., to wish to imitate their brutal apathy to anatomy, or having our bodies sold for six or eight shillings a piece, as at Paris, but to make shorter work of it by proffering yourselves for dissection when departed this life, which, as a proof of your sincerity, will be worth a thousand stupid arguments; and this will be the way that I and hundreds more can only judge how far a necessity for the anatomy of the dead human body exists in your opinion, for while _you_ keep aloof, how do you ever think that England will submit to be made subservient to the promoting of anatomical science, when those of the surgical profession, who are to be _sovereignly_ benefited by it, wriggle and twist, argue and assert, rather than come to the practical point of showing example is better than precept. If students want subjects, get the carcasses of cattle for them, especially _calves_ and _asses_, to cut up, and I'll warrant they will make just as good surgeons as if they had cut up human bodies; for, however they may smatter over descriptive anatomy at their examinations, they know as little about it a year after as the man in the moon; but if Englishmen will shut their eyes and open their mouths to swallow anything, and put an enemy in their skull to steal away their brains, why so be it, though I hope never to see this to be the case so long as I live; still nothing shall be wanting in my power to prevent it,'

So far we have given the arguments and opinions of Mr. Sleight on this interesting subject, without at the same time attempting to refute the one or uphold the other. We are certainly inclined to give Mr. Sleight all due credit for the humanity and feeling which have prompted him to enter the arena in support of a cause in which, as Sterne says, there is much to be said on both sides. That Mr. Sleight, however, has taken a wrong view of the subject in many points cannot be doubted; for the very circumstance of a surgical student obtaining a correct knowledge of the anatomy of the human frame by the dissection of a calf or an ass, is so utterly devoid of all sense and reason, that our surprise is great that any individual could for a moment entertain it, much less make it a part of his groundwork for an attack on the promotion and extension of anatomical science. We strongly suspect that, if Mr. Sleight were so unfortunate as to dislocate a joint, or fracture a limb, he would hesitate for some time before he entrusted himself for a cure to the care of an individual who had never dissected a human body in his life, but had always been practising his knife upon calves and asses. There exists little or no analogy in the structure of the human frame and that of either of the animals alluded to, and the study of the anatomy of the horse and of man is as distinct and separate as two subjects can possibly be. Each of them forms a positive branch of human knowledge; and upon the same principle that a human anatomist would commit the most lamentable blunders were he to be guided in his professional career by his knowledge of animal anatomy, so would the veterinarian find himself completely at fault were he to attempt the case of a dislocation or a fracture on his mere knowledge of human anatomy. The great question, however, is--if it be decided, and we hesitate not to affirm that it has been decided, in the affirmative by the most competent and unprejudiced judges, that dissection is actually necessary to complete and perfect the education of a medical student--in what manner are human subjects to be procured, by which that desirable end can be fully obtained? It cannot for a moment be entertained, that any member of the profession would sanction or connive at the practices of the Burkers, in order that a constant and regular supply of subjects may be obtained for the education of the medical student; but as the law now stands, every obstacle is thrown in the way of the student perfecting himself in the science to which he has devoted himself, at the same time that the law is imperative upon him, that before he shall be allowed to practise publicly as a surgeon, he shall undergo the most strict and rigid examination as to his knowledge of anatomy, which knowledge is only to be acquired by dissection, and from which he must be necessarily shut out by the very difficulty of obtaining the means of acquiring it.

We have already, in a previous part of this work, given at large the arguments advanced not only by professional men, but others wholly unconnected with the science, in favour of the facility which ought to be granted in the procuring of dead bodies, and it is only fair that both sides of the question should be heard. It is only by a collision of opinions that truth can be elicited; and on a question of such vital interest, and which, in some of its features, has aroused the attention of the country in a manner unprecedented, it may not be without its uses to place all the arguments, as it were, in a state of juxtaposition, and thence be able to draw those results, which may ultimately prove of the greatest benefit to those who are so deeply concerned in the final establishment of the law, and in the removal of those difficulties which at present press so heavily on the promotion and advancement of anatomical science.