William Harvey

by Sir D'Arcy Power

The Act of Parliament which, in 1540, united the Guild of Surgeons with the Company of Barber Surgeons in London especially empowered the masters of the united company to take yearly the bodies of four malefactors who had been condemned and put to death for felony for their “further and better knowledge, instruction, insight, learning, and experience in the science and faculty of surgery.” Queen Elizabeth, following this precedent, granted a similar permission to the College of Physicians in 1565. The Charter allowed the President of the College of Physicians to take one, two, three, or four bodies a year for dissection. The radius from which the supply might be obtained was enlarged, so that persons executed in London, Middlesex, or any county within sixteen miles might be taken by the college servants.

The proviso would appear to be unnecessary, considering the great number of executions which then took place and the small number of bodies which were required, but it probably enabled the subjects to be obtained with greater ease. The executions in London were witnessed by great crowds, who often sided with the friends of the felons, and rendered it impossible for the body to be taken away for dissection. The Charter of James I. enlarged these powers by allowing the College of Physicians to take annually the bodies of six felons executed in London, Middlesex, or Surrey.

Little is known in detail of the manner in which Anatomy was taught by the College of Physicians, but the labours of Mr. Young and Mr. South have given us an accurate picture of the way in which it was carried out by the Barber Surgeons in London. We may be sure that in so conservative an age the methods did not differ greatly at the two institutions, especially as the Barber Surgeons usually enlisted the services of the better trained physicians to teach their members both Anatomy and Surgery.

Anatomy was taught practically in a series of demonstrations upon the body; but as there was no means of preserving the subject, it had to be taught by a general survey rather than in minute detail. The method adopted was the one still followed by the veterinary student. A single body was dissected to show the muscles (this was the muscular lecture); another to show the bones (the osteological lecture); another to show the parts within the head, chest, and abdomen (the visceral lecture). The osteological lecturer was not always identical with the visceral lecturer, nor he with the lecturer upon the muscles, though some great teachers, like Reid and Harvey, gave a course upon each subject.

The Demonstrations usually took place four times a year, and were called Public Anatomies, because the subject was generally a public body—that is to say, it was a felon executed for his misdeeds. There was also an indefinite number of Private Anatomies. The attendance of surgeons at the Public Anatomies was compulsory. The attendance at the Private Anatomies was by invitation. It was illegal for any surgeon to dissect a human body in the City of London, or within a radius of seven miles, without permission of the Barber Surgeons’ Company; and in 1573 the Company’s Records for May 21st contain the minute: “Here was John Deane and appointed to bring in his fine of ten pounds (for having an Anatomy in his house contrary to an order in that behalf) between this and Midsummer next”—an enormously heavy punishment when we remember the relative value of money in those days. Whenever a surgeon wished to dissect a particularly interesting subject, it was termed a Private Anatomy, and it was generally performed at the Hall of the Company after due permission had been asked for and obtained, the surgeon inviting his own friends and pupils, the Company inviting whom it chose.

Every effort was made to insure the punctual attendance at the public or compulsory anatomies, for it was enacted in 1572 that every man of the Company using the mystery or faculty of surgery, be he freeman, foreigner, or alien stranger, shall come unto the Anatomy lecture, being by the beadle warned thereto. And for not keeping their hour, both in the forenoon and also in the afternoon, and being a freeman, shall forfeit and pay at every time fourpence. The foreigner (or one who was not free of the Company) in like manner, and the stranger sixpence. The said fines and forfeits to be employed by the anatomists for their expenses. Excuses were sometimes admitted, for a few years earlier Robert Mudsley “hath licence to be absent from all lecture days without payment of any fine because he hath given over exercising of the art of Surgery and doth occupy only a silk shop and shave.” In later years, the higher the position of the defaulter in the Company, the heavier was his fine for non-attendance; so that the assistants of the Company, who corresponded to the Council of the present Royal College of Surgeons, were fined 3s. 4d. for each lecture they missed.

Every effort was made to render the lectures successful. The best teachers were obtained; they were paid liberally, and each lecturer or reader was himself assisted by two demonstrators. Each course lasted three days—a lecture in the morning, a lecture in the afternoon, and a feast between the two lectures. As the anatomies were a public show, we may feel sure that Pepys attended one, and, as usual, he gives a perfectly straightforward account of the proceedings. He records under the date February 27, 1662-1663: “Up and to my office.... About eleven o’clock Commissioner Pett and I walked to Chyrurgeon’s Hall (we being all invited thither, and promised to dine there), where we were led into the Theatre: and by and by comes the reader Dr. Tearne, with the Master and Company in a very handsome manner: and all being settled, he begun his lecture, this being the second upon the kidneys, ureters, &c., which was very fine; and his discourse being ended, we walked into the Hall, and there being great store of company, we had a fine dinner and good learned company, many Doctors of Phisique, and we used with extraordinary great respect.... After dinner Dr. Scarborough took some of his friends, and I went along with them, to see the body alone, which we did, which was a lusty fellow, a seaman that was hanged for a robbery. I did touch the dead body with my bare hand: it felt cold, but methought it was a very unpleasant sight.... Thence we went into a private room, where I perceive they prepare the bodies, and there were the kidneys, ureters, &c., upon which he read to-day, and Dr. Scarborough, upon my desire and the company’s, did show very clearly the manner of the disease of the stone and the cutting, and all other questions that I could think of.... Thence with great satisfaction to me back to the Company, where I heard good discourse, and so to the afternoon lecture upon the heart and lungs, &c., and that being done we broke up, took leave and back to the office, we two, Sir W. Batten, who dined here also, being gone before.” Pepys’ interest in this particular lecture lay in the fact that he had himself been cut for stone, a disease which seems to have been hereditary in his mother’s family. Dr. Scarborough, who had been the Company’s lecturer for nineteen years, was the friend and pupil of Harvey, whose interest had obtained the post for him. He seems to have been succeeded by Dr. Christopher Terne, assistant physician to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, whose lecture Pepys heard.

The cost of the lectures and demonstrations was defrayed at first by the Corporations, but in course of time, benefactors came forward and bequeathed funds for the purpose. In the year 1579 there was a motion before the Court of the Barber Surgeons’ Company concerning a lecture in surgery “to be had and made in our Hall and of an annuity of ten pounds to be given for the performance thereof yearly by Master Doctor Caldwall, Doctor in phisick; but it was not concluded upon neither was any further speech at that time.” No reference to the proposal occurs subsequently in the minute books, so that the idea was probably abandoned, no doubt upon the ground that it would lead to additional expense which the Company was unprepared to meet. The annuity was only ten pounds a year, and in 1646 the cost of the lectures, including the dinners, amounted to £22 14s. 6d., or without the feasts to £12 14s. 6d. It is now obvious that the Company did a very stupid thing, for in 1581, two years later, Lord Lumley in conjunction with Dr. Caldwell, and at his instance, founded the Lumleian lectureship at the College of Physicians. The surgeons thus lost a noble benefaction which should of right have belonged to them and with which Harvey might still have been associated, for whilst he was lecturing at the College of Physicians, Alexander Reid, his junior in years as well as in standing, was lecturing at the Barber Surgeons’ Hall in Monkwell Street.