'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.
The entire weight of the objections and the opposition which has been raised against the Anatomy Bill appears to rest on the outrage which some of its enactments would inflict on the poor and friendless, and we are free to admit that if it were by law made compulsory on the pauper to give his body after death to dissection, such law would be a scandal upon the country, and in direct opposition to the principles of humanity and Christianity. But the objection to the Anatomy Bill wholly dies away when it is expressly provided in it, that if the pauper consents not voluntarily to the anatomization of his body after death, that the overseers of the parish shall not be warranted in the disposal of the corpse of that pauper, but that it shall be buried according to the general custom. The only suspicion which rests on our mind in this case is, that were a pauper known to be wholly friendless, and without any relations, some clandestine work might be set on foot to obtain that consent surreptitiously,—inasmuch as the price which his body fetched would go into the hands of the parish officers; and thus a door might be opened to the introduction of many serious abuses, which might ultimately defeat every humane intention of the legislature, and give the anti-anatomists the most formidable weapons in their hands, wherewith to combat their doughty opponents, and it would then be an easy task to determine on which side the victory would be gained. Mr. Sleight suggests, in some measure to obviate this objection, that the certificate of the voluntary surrender by the pauper of his body for dissection shall not only be signed by a medical man but also by a relative; but we are putting the question that the pauper has no friend nor relative, which is, unfortunately, too often the case with the wretched inmate of the workhouse, and the law, having sanctioned the disposal of the body, it is in perfect keeping with the natural depravity of the human character, when gain and emolument are the objects to be obtained, to suppose that the most punctilious deference will be paid to the dying wishes of the pauper, or that some advantage will not be taken of his helpless and unfriended condition to induce him to subscribe to a document, at which, under any other circumstances, every feeling of his heart would revolt at. The very saving which would accrue to the parish arising from the expenses of the funerals, which, although taken individually, may be small, but if collectively, amount to a considerable sum in the course of a year, would also operate on the mind of the parish functionaries to promote as much as possible the disposal of the body to the surgeons, for in the latter case it would be a positive gain—in the former, a positive loss.
It is naturally to be expected, that the whole medical procession will be in array against those who, by their writings, even dare to insinuate that the resurrectionists have not been induced to commit murder, on account of the great facility with which the body is disposed of, and the deep and almost impenetrable secresy with which negotiations of that nature are carried on. The whole business, however, resolves itself into this simple question: is it, or is it not in the power of a professed surgeon, to whom a body may be offered for sale, to determine, on the very first view of it, whether the subject died a natural death, or whether force or violence has been used to effect the destruction of life? If the question be answered in the negative, that the surgeon has no means of arriving at a just conclusion, what then becomes of the boasted superiority of medical science over that which was possessed by our forefathers? and yet, it is not less true, that the medical profession must shelter themselves behind this shield of ignorance, if they are to stand wholly absolved in the eyes of the country for having secretly connived at the horrid practices of the Burkers. We remember that, on the trial of Bishop and Williams, Mr. Partridge was asked by what circumstance he was led to draw the conclusion that the body of the Italian boy had never been buried?—his answer was, that he was chiefly led to form that conclusion on account of there being no saw-dust in the hair! This information was a guide to all future Burkers, to take especial care that, in any future murders, that sign of inhumation should not be wanting; but it spoke very little for the extent of medical knowledge as to the appearance and symptoms of a violent death, that the conclusion of a murder should be drawn from a mere custom in no way connected with surgical science. It is undoubted, that the body of Mrs. Walsh and of Sarah Vesey were both of them disposed of to the anatomical schools; and in one instance, it was thought requisite by the head of one of our greatest hospitals publicly to deny the fact, that the body of the former had been purchased for the benefit of that institution. We have had before us, in the evidence of young Cook, the exact manner in which his mother deprived Mrs. Walsh of her life, and we have it also in evidence, that on the following day the negotiation for the sale of the body commenced. Now, what opinion must be formed of the extent of the medical skill of those persons, and we forbear to mention their names, to whom that body was offered, if they could not distinctly and immediately perceive that it had not come to its death by natural means, but by an act of the most determined violence? It would be drawing too largely on the credulity of any one to suppose for a moment, that persons daily and hourly acquainted with every mark and symptom of a natural death, should not be able at one glance to determine, that such could not be the case with the body of Mrs. Walsh. As to the absence of the usual symptoms of burial, we are silent upon them, because it is well known, that the resurrectionists do not obtain all the subjects which they dispose of from the churchyard, but that they are indebted for a great number to the obliging civility of the keepers of the workhouses, particularly those who farm the poor. It is not every coffin that leaves a workhouse that contains what it ought to do, and although the keepers may know how to shelter themselves from the probability of a discovery of acting as principals in the business, yet there are well known methods by which they secretly connive at the stealing of a body, which being well known to be that of a friendless creature, is never likely to be inquired after, nor demanded from their hands to be buried in any other manner than at the parish expense; the absence therefore of the usual symptoms of burial, may not therefore be considered sufficient to excite the suspicions of the surgical professor, but if he be unable to distinguish on the inspection of a corpse, and even on the very first view of it, whether it came by a natural or a violent death, to what conclusion are we then naturally driven, but that medical science is one of the greatest humbugs of the day? It is allowed that the medical men, who gave their evidence on the causes which occasioned the death of Carlo Ferrari, were decidedly in error; it is true, they all agreed that he came by his death by violence; but of the manner in which that violence was committed, they were manifestly ignorant, that is if that part of the confession of Bishop is to be credited, wherein he relates the manner in which he was accustomed to dispose of his victims,—and to that part of his statement we never heard that any discredit was attached. We, therefore, revert to the original question, was the surgical professor, to whom the body of Caroline Walsh was disposed of, before it had scarcely become cold, so utterly ignorant of the general symptoms of a natural death, as not to discern immediately that no such symptoms did present themselves in the corpse then before him, and consequently that he was morally and religiously bound, as in the case of Mr. Partridge and Mr. Hill, at the King's College, to institute a full inquiry into the causes of the death of the subject, and to hold the persons in custody who brought the corpse, until the requisite information had been obtained? We know, and it is a melancholy idea to entertain, that the improvement and knowledge of one of the most useful of human sciences, are made to depend on the services of a set of the most abominable miscreants who disgrace human society. It is certain that the proprietors of the anatomical schools, and even the heads of the hospitals, although in their hearts they detest the practices of the men, yet they are obliged to truckle and to display a degree of servile subserviency to them, or otherwise the means would be cut off by which their anatomical studies could be prosecuted. We have it from the authority of the proprietor of an anatomical school, that he dare not give offence to any of the resurrectionists, for that they have it in their power to ruin any anatomical school in the metropolis. This circumstance alone may account for that apparent indifference which has been exhibited by the heads of the hospitals, and the proprietors of anatomical schools, in ascertaining the causes by which a subject came by his death; for to express any suspicion that it was occasioned by violence, would be met by the most ferocious indignation, and accompanied perhaps by threats, not of the most pleasant nature. Subjects, say the anatomists, must be had, and we must not therefore give offence to those individuals, who are the only channel by which we can obtain those materials wherewith our studies can be prosecuted. We know of one instance, in which, subsequently to the execution of Bishop, a subject was taken to an anatomical school, and the proprietor proceeded to examine it, in order to ascertain the manner of its death, and having put some pertinent questions to the wretch who brought it, which were not very agreeable to his feelings, he with the most violent oaths, huddled up his nauseous load in his sack, swearing that he would never bring another subject to that school. Here, then, the medical men are placed in a state of great difficulty and embarrassment. With the consciousness that they have an important duty to perform, in investigating the cause of the death of the subjects which are offered to them, they also know that if such duty be performed, they have nothing more to do than to close the doors of their schools, or follow the advice of Mr. Sleight, and take to the dissection of calves and asses. One of the most celebrated resurrectionists of the present day, and who, we have good reason to believe, was the chief instigator of all the annoyance which Mr. Hill of the King's College has received, has been heard to declare that he would be d——d if he would take a body to any place, where any questions were asked him; and this man, who possesses an uncommon degree of natural shrewdness, once retorted upon a professor, who put rather a significant question to him,—' Have you been studying to your time of life, and not be able to distinguish at once between a Burked subject, and one that has died a natural death? It is only the fool that asks questions.' Thus it is at once apparent, that some legislative enactment is imperatively called for, by which the professors and students of one of the most useful and liberal of human sciences may be released from this degrading and disgraceful state of dependence on a set of wretches, who are the very refuse of society, and their high and honourable feelings not daily and hourly wounded by being slavishly obliged to truckle to the miscreants, for the very materials by which their professional pursuits can be carried on.
We may be accused for this prolixity in our discussion on this interesting subject, but the public attention is so keenly alive to every circumstance connected with it, and to the adoption of those measures, by which a repetition of the horrors may be avoided, by which the metropolis of this country has been of late, to its great dishonour and infamy, distinguished, that we would not allow the opportunity to escape us, of treating the subject in all its various bearings, and from which, perhaps, may result the gradual removal of those difficulties which beset the promotion of surgical education.
We shall now return to the alleged murder of Sarah Vesey, from which we were led to digress by the foregoing exposition of the conflicting opinions relative to the supply of the anatomical schools, which, trammelled as they are at present by legal enactments, are wholly incompetent to furnish the instruction that is so much desired, and on which the safety and health of the whole community may be said to depend.
Mrs. Cook, unfortunately, found Sarah Vesey too ready to lend a willing ear to all her artful and villainous insinuations, and she ultimately so well succeeded as to induce the girl to quarrel with the mistress with whom she lived, and without giving her any notice, left her house at night, not even taking her clothes with her.