On Thursday, the 15th, in the House of Commons, Mr. Warburton moved for leave to bring in a bill to regulate schools of anatomy. He reminded the House, that in 1829 he had introduced a bill of the same kind, which had passed this House, but had been rejected in another place. The political changes which had occurred since had occasioned him to defer the renewal of the attempt. The bill he now proposed to introduce differed in some respects from the other. It was more simple. Instead of requiring anatomical professors to obtain licenses, which had been objected to, he proposed the appointment of anatomical inspectors, by the Home Secretary, to whom returns were to be made, and who should inspect the schools. It had been objected to the former bill, that it made a distinction between the poor and the rich; his present bill was equally applicable to all; and he hoped, when it was considered what had been the enormous and necessary consequence of the present law,—the law was one thing and necessity another,—prejudices would give way, and that schools would be supplied with the subjects necessary for the promotion of science, and at reduced prices.
Mr. Hunt said, that unless this bill was materially different from the last, he should oppose it to the utmost. He hoped that a clause would be introduced to legalize the sale of a person's own body, which was now the property of his executor.
Mr. Sadler said that so far from the repugnance referred to being a prejudice, it was a principle which pervaded the whole world, and could not be eradicated without injury to the best feelings of our nature. Let the Bill be confined to those who were liberated from those prejudices. The poor would not bear it; the Bill would be unpopular, and justly so, and would tend to close the houses of mercy. It was said that a neighbouring country had overcome those prejudices: then let the principle of free trade be called into action, and our schools of anatomy be supplied with subjects from abroad.
Sir R. Vyvyan observed that there was a want of a clause in the former bill, repealing the law which subjected criminals to anatomy; for till that law was repealed, the public never would endure that other bodies should be exposed to what was thus made an indignity. Whatever might be in the bill, he hoped there would be nothing to offend the prejudices of the poor. Those who died in a poor-house or hospital were equally entitled to have their bodies respected as those who died elsewhere.
Mr. Warburton said that his bill would apply equally to rich and poor: no body would be given for dissection without the consent of the person when alive, or of the nearest relative after death.
Leave was then given.
On the bringing in of the Bill, Mr. Perceval recommended, that the mere possession of dead bodies should be held to be felony. The knowledge of surgery, he said, could not be lost in the space of two years, and if they were to try an experiment for that time, he was sure that medical men would then resort to the dissection of animals, and obtain, while conducted under proper regulations, all the knowledge necessary for their profession.
We have before, in another work, had the satisfaction of exposing the folly of this fungus of a legislator, when he attempted to impose upon the fasting mechanics and labourers of this country, a religious fast-day, or a general propitiation to Heaven for all the sins and crimes which have been committed generally and individually, since the time that fast-days went out of fashion! We did then hope that we should have heard no more of him; but in Mr. Warburton's Anatomy Bill being brought in, we were again enlightened by the sagacity and profundity of his remarks. Mr. Perceval certainly forms a component part of the legislative wisdom of this country, and certain it is (poor man!) that he is a specimen of it, that will not tend much to exalt the character of it. His recommendation that the mere possession of a dead body should be held to be a felony, is a lamentable specimen of folly, which makes us heartily rejoice that all the framers of our laws are not of the same mind, with the right honourable and downright nonsensical member of whom we are now speaking. Suppose Mr. Perceval's good lady, or one of her children, were to die, does the poor silly man wish to make himself guilty of felony, for having the dead body in his possession, when, morally, he would not be one jot more of a culprit than he is at present? The latter part of the paragraph, from his speech, is equally remarkable for its absurdity. He gives it as his opinion, that the knowledge of surgery would not be lost in two years, if, during that period, its study were discontinued. The Honourable Member's opinion on this point is, we fear, the result of self-examination. He, perhaps, finds that his own stock of knowledge remains the same, whether he studies or not; he discovers, perhaps, that he does not know one jot more about legislation and civil policy than he did many years ago, when he first ornamented St. Stephen's Chapel with his presence, and enlightened the members of it with the profundity of his researches. He argues, that as he has not gained anything by study—and no one will be so rude as to contradict him—there is nothing to be lost by not studying; but we have some reason to suppose, that he is as much mistaken in this particular as he is in the very view which he seems to have taken of humanity. Dissection of dead bodies he opposes as a matter merely of feeling; and at the same time expresses a hope that the surgeons will take to cutting up animals, by the torture of which Mr. Perceval trusts that science will be equally advanced without resorting to the revolting practice of human dissection. Putting, however, out of the question the savageness of this proposition, how would it work in other respects, to the end proposed by this most enlightened legislator. It would, he says, provide all the necessary anatomical knowledge; which in other words is saying, that there exists so strong an analogy between the anatomy and diseases of a man and a dog, that it is only necessary for the medical student to employ a Bishop or a Williams to burke a dozen of the canine species, and all the diseases incident to human nature will be fully developed, the treatment of them ascertained, and all the ends of science fully accomplished. Here again we see the danger of a person forming a judgment from his own individual self. It is the opinion of Mr. Perceval that, in point of utility, a beast is any day as useful as a man—consequently the honourable member regards the one in about the same light as he does the other. Alas! the consciousness of his own true value has made him exceedingly libellous upon the rest of the race to which he has the honour of belonging.
The hints which were thrown out by Sir John Sewell, in his letter to the editor of the Times, and inserted in a former part of this work, appear to have met with that serious attention which they so well merited. Still, however, in some respects, it must be owned that his plan is defective, and in consequence thereof, some strictures having been made in one of the public journals, Sir John addressed the following explanatory statement to the editor of the Times:—