It need hardly be said that it is with this purpose only that these facts are again cited here.
CHAPTER III.
LONDON CONTINUED—LITERARY AND OTHER WORK, 1820-1834.
The 'Treatise on Fever' held an important place in the development of that sanitary ideal to the realisation of which my grandfather afterwards devoted himself almost exclusively; but in the course of the years which are treated of in this chapter, he wrote much on other subjects.
During this time severe money losses had necessitated the breaking up of the establishment in Trinity Square; retrenchment became a duty; Mrs Southwood Smith went abroad with the three children of the second marriage[[11]] to carry on their education; and (his two elder daughters, Caroline and Emily, being engaged in teaching away from home) my grandfather once more retired to a strictly studious and professional life at his consulting-rooms in New Broad Street, giving much time to literary work, including the writing of a large number of physiological articles for the 'Penny Encyclopædia.'
Dr Southwood Smith at this period assisted in founding the 'Westminster Review.' This Review, supported as it was by men of great ability and earnest thought, took, as is well known, a leading place in the promotion of the political and social reforms of the day.
His own contributions to it were many. Besides the articles on "Quarantine and Sanitary Laws" already mentioned, the one on "Education," which appeared in the first number, may be specially referred to.
There was also one calling attention to the horrors arising from there being no proper provision for supplying the anatomical schools with the means of dissection, which led to very practical results.
"Body-snatching" is now an extinct crime. Such was the name given to the practice of robbing graves of the bodies of the dead in order to sell them for the purpose of dissection. Such practices were an outrage against all the feelings which render the resting-places of the dead hallowed spots. One can imagine the horror which the friends of the newly interred must have experienced in finding that their graves had been violated during the night; and worse still were the midnight scenes when the work was interrupted by the police, and struggles ensued.
The men who carried on this trade were called "resurrection-men": they were a depraved and dangerous class, and if the state of things then existing had caused no other evil than that of educating such a class, it would still have been worth much effort to get it remedied.