While these proceedings were carrying on, the public alarm was increasing in every direction; the medical profession was visited with the most severe, and we think, unjust indignation, inasmuch as it was believed to be the secret encourager of a system by which human life was sacrificed with the most heartless indifference, and the detection of the crime became a matter of extreme difficulty, almost amounting to impossibility, on account of the secrecy with which the proceedings are carried on in the hospitals and the private dissecting-rooms. It is at once evident that, from the present mode of supplying subjects for dissection, no man's life is secure. The murderer may disguise his victim by laying out, and for a time burying the corpse, by cutting off the hair, or by knocking out the teeth, and then his market is as safe as it is sure; or, if the assassin be more timid than usual, he has only to dismember the subject, and the sale by piecemeal will turn in an equal profit, and defy detection.
This is a state of danger to the public, the toleration of which would be criminal. The medical profession must arouse from its equivocal silence, and take such measures as may prevent its being, in a secondary sense, accessary to murder.
That the medical profession feel sore at the imputations which are cast upon them is not to be wondered at, and they very industriously throw the blame upon the existing laws, which, on account of their pretended impolicy, are themselves the cause of the different murders which have been committed, for the purpose of supplying the anatomical schools with subjects for the pupil. Thus Dr. Southwood Smith, in concluding that branch of his lectures on forensic medicine, which includes the extinction of life by intentional human agency, and illustrating the several points which demand the attention of the medical witness, on the examination of the body after death, from poisoning, drowning, hanging, strangulation, bruises and wounds, adverted to the real position in which the medical profession and the public are placed by the present state of the law relative to the study of anatomy, and after drawing a strong picture of the consequences that would result to the community, from the general neglect of this pursuit by the profession, spoke nearly as follows:—
'You dare not practise without a knowledge of anatomy,—you cannot prescribe for a patient, you cannot undertake the management of any surgical or medical case without a direct violation of the law, until you have adduced, before legally appointed authorities, evidence that you have studied anatomy with such effect, as to be able to stand a searching examination. But the same law that makes it imperative on you to study anatomy, in order to acquire a legal right to practise your profession, renders the possession of the means of pursuing the study illegal. Human anatomy cannot be known without the dissection of the human body, yet the possession of a body that has been exhumed, for the purpose of dissection (no body except that of the murderer being obtainable in any other mode) is penal. So that you are to be punished for not conforming to a law, which you cannot qualify yourself for obeying without breaking! Did ever any civilized country witness such a situation as that in which the law has placed you and the public? It has contrived to raise the price of a dead body to such a height, as absolutely and appallingly to endanger the safety of the living. Of this danger, both the public and the legislature have been long and earnestly warned. Several years ago, before any instance of the actual perpetration of the crime had been discovered, the temptation and the consequent danger were fully brought to view in a pamphlet, entitled "The Use of the Dead to the Living." Investigation was set on foot, a parliamentary inquiry was obtained, the medical profession performed its duty in the fullest manner, and stated, without reserve, all the odiousness and all the danger of exhumation. It laid open the true character of the hardened and the desperate men engaged in this employment. It had not yet occurred to those men, that it might be more easy to murder the living than disturb the dead, but the possibility of the occurrence of such a thought, and the probability of their acting upon it, were distinctly foretold. Over and over again it was stated, that the price always to be obtained for a subject, from ten to fifteen guineas, was a temptation to murder not likely to be resisted, and with an earnest voice the profession implored that this risk might be no longer incurred. The administration was impressed—the public was excited—something was promised—a little was attempted, but nothing was done. Then came on the Edinburgh horrors; and now we are thrown into a state of intense alarm, lest the same horrors should be perpetrated, and are perpetrating, at our own doors. And knowing this, it is said, it behoves the teacher and the medical profession in general to be extremely cautious, to examine with the utmost vigilance, whether any thing suspicious appear, and if it do, to investigate it to the bottom; and that it is now become an imperative duty, there can be no more question than there can be that it will be faithfully and rigidly observed in all schools, and throughout the profession. But when you come seriously to consider what it is in the power of the anatomist and physiologist to do—when, from the preceding statements, you see the utmost they can do, the truth is not more true than it is dreadful. If then it be made worth while to pursue murder as a trade, it can be carried on to a prodigious extent without detection. But men, even the desperate men, called body-snatchers, will not murder without a motive; but they will murder upon system, and to an extent to which no limit can be fixed, if the temptation be great, and the chance of escape considerable. It is in vain to look for protection to the law—no law can restrain them; no punishment will deter them:—the only effectual remedy is the removal of the temptation, the taking away of the motive, by rendering the dead body so cheap, as to be in fact without value as an article of sale; and the mode of doing this is simple. All that is necessary is, to repeal the existing law, which renders it illegal to possess a dead body for the purpose of dissection; and to enact a law, rendering the possession of a body for the purpose legal. Every thing would then be accomplished without exhumation, without danger, without any feeling being shocked, without any injury or indignity being done to any human creature. Those who from ignorance or childish prejudice—prejudice now confined to the highest and the lowest vulgar, raise a clamour against this and all similar expedients—assist and aid every future murder of this kind that may be committed, as really, though not as intentionally, as though they assisted at the strangulation.'
On this highly-interesting subject, and which now embraces the attention of all ranks of the community, we shall not be accused of diffuseness in giving the sentiments of another most celebrated surgeon, especially as many hints are there thrown out, by which the present system of obtaining dead bodies may altogether be exploded.
Mr. Brodie (for we ascribe the following remarks to him, although he has not affixed his name to them) says, 'Such is the importance of anatomy, that those who are engaged in the study of medicine and surgery will always endeavour to learn it, as far as it lies in their power to do so; and if subjects for dissection cannot be procured by decent and legal means, they will be procured by means that are indecent and illegal. The present system of procuring them by the robbery of churchyards, is attended with very great mischief in various ways. It disgusts and alarms not only the surviving friends, but the whole of society. Some are rendered miserable, because they know that the bodies of their friends have been stolen from the grave, and carried to the dissecting-room; and others, because they are apprehensive that the bodies of their friends may be served in the same manner. The men who are employed to exhume bodies are of the very worst description; they are outcasts of society, who being pointed at as resurrection-men, are unable to maintain themselves by any honest employment; and are thus driven to become thieves and house-breakers, because, when not actually employed in stealing bodies, they can do nothing better.
'The price of subjects at this moment is as high as eight, ten, or twelve guineas, and it has been as high as fifteen guineas. But many a person has been murdered for a much smaller sum than the least of these. Here then is an inducement to commit actual murder; and in addition to the mere gain, there is this further inducement, namely, that the murder is committed under circumstances peculiarly calculated to effect its concealment: as the bodies in the dissecting-room soon become disfigured, so that they cannot be recognized, it is not to be supposed that the teachers of anatomy, except under peculiar circumstances, can distinguish the bodies of those who die a natural death. It may be observed further, that it is impossible for the teachers to spare, from their other occupations, the time necessary to make an accurate examination of each individual subject that is brought into the dissecting-room, and that if such examinations were made, they would have the effect of preventing the students making some of the most important and useful dissections afterwards. The subjects must be handed over to the students untouched; the teachers and senior students may and ought to be as vigilant as possible, but it is equally absurd and unjust to suppose, that an absolute responsibility can rest upon them.
'The commission of murder for the purpose of obtaining subjects for the anatomical schools, is now found to be no imaginary evil. But the public need not be surprised that it has occurred. It has been foreseen by medical men, whose attention has been directed to these inquiries for some years, and the danger has been long ago pointed out to many members of the legislature; nor can all the activity of the police, nor all the watchfulness of the teachers of anatomy, prevent it recurring some time or other, if there be no easier method of supplying subjects for dissection, than that which is now resorted to, and if they continue, in consequence, to produce the enormous sum which they produce at present.
'One effect of the existing difficulty of procuring subjects in this country is, that a large proportion of medical students visit the Continent, and reside in Paris, or elsewhere, for the purpose of dissection. It may not be very creditable to us as a nation, that we should not possess among ourselves the means of instruction in so important a branch of knowledge as anatomy; but there is another and a stronger reason for lamenting the emigration of medical students. There is no class of society, in whose honour and integrity, and good principles, the public are so deeply interested, as in those of the medical profession. The members of it are admitted to a degree of confidence which is not given to any other individuals; circumstances are of necessity made known to them, which are not intended for the world, and the disclosure of which would, in many instances, destroy the peace of a family. They visit their fellow-creatures, labouring not only under the bodily, but the mental weakness of disease, and a depraved or dishonest person will easily convert those opportunities to some base purpose of self-advancement or self-gratification. We need not insult our neighbours by asserting that there is more vice in Paris than in London. Be that as it may, there is still good reason to suppose, that a number of young Englishmen are more likely to fall into vicious and dissipated habits in the former city than in the latter. Even if their parents reside in a distant county, they have in all probability relations, and at any rate they have acquaintance in London, and while in London, they are in constant communication with their families in the country, and they are in a greater or less degree under the surveillance of their friends. But while they reside in Paris, these restraints are removed; they are left entirely to themselves, and that at a period of life when temptations are new to them, when their passions are strong, and when good counsel and good example are of more importance than at any other period, either earlier or later. Can any one regard this as a favourable condition for young men, who, in the subsequent part of life, are to have such trust reposed in them, as necessarily must be reposed in medical practitioners?