Mr. Sleight, however, proceeds to argue, 'That the committing of murder by Burking is horrible, no one will dispute; but its having occurred is no sound reason why any law should be made to sacrifice the feelings and sympathies of the poor and unprotected; nor would such a scheme ever be sanctioned by any christianized or liberal mind, which considers every man in the light of a brother of immortality, and whose hopes rest on the faith of the scriptures, that the resurrection of the body to eternal life will ultimately take place, which any law to sell dead bodies would be repugnant to, if not entirely subversive of the belief in the grand doctrine of the Christian system, and which might lead to every sort of riot and debauchery, to a worse degree than they now exist, when it might be said in the words of the Apostle, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." Neither is the existence of the crime of Burking a good ground, that another evil less palpable to the mind should be legalized to prevent it. Any person, if he possessed the feelings of a man, would make every exertion to suppress in the most effectual way, namely, by discontinuing to dissect the human body, if it could not be done but through the aid of so foul a deed, and by endeavouring to bring to justice the villains who might commit murders by Burking, as the assistant demonstrator at the King's College, to his everlasting honour, did.
'As it is a misdemeanour to possess a dead human body, it shews with what care Englishmen formerly reverenced the mortal remains of humanity; surely they would have had sense enough to perceive, if, as it is now asserted, dissections were necessary to qualify for the profession of surgery or medicine, and the preservation of health in their days; but as impediments were thrown in the way of the practice of anatomy, it is clear it was then considered proper to prevent, if possible, the violating the sanctuary of the dead, though they may now be called ignorant, prejudiced, &c. Still it may be fairly presumed, that they had as much common sense as the generation of this period have, and I believe they had more; for it is only since continental examples, and the pranks of Scotch philosophers have bothered the brains of Englishmen, that any such thing as legalizing anatomy was ever thought of, and it is only now intended, in my opinion, to gull the people into a notion, that unless a surgeon has dissected he is unable to practise his profession, which an instance or two I shall relate will show not to be the case.
'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.