Use of the dead to the living : from the Westminster review.

  • Smith, T. Southwood (Thomas Southwood), 1788-1861.
Date:
1827
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Use of the dead to the living : from the Westminster review. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    €eive what his own sensations would be, were an ignorant surgeon, with a rashness more fatal than the criminal mod- est} of the former, to undertake an important operation — Suppose it were a tumor, which turned out to be an aneu- rism ; suppose it were a hernia, in operating on which the epigastric artery were divided, or the intestine itself woun- ded ; suppose it were his mother, his wife, his sister, his child, whom he thus saw perish before his eyes, what would the leader then think of the prejudice which withholds from the surgeon' that information, without which the practice of his profession is murder ? The study of anatomy is a severe and laborious study ; the practice of dissection is on many accounts highly repul- sive : it is even not without danger to life itself.* To men of clear understandings, to those especially of a philosophi- cal turn of mind, the pursuit is its own reward ; they are so fully satisfied, that the more it is cultivated the more sa- tisfaction it will afford, that they need no stimulus to induce them to undergo the drudgery. But this is by no means the case with ordinary minds. The fatigue and disgust of the dissecting-room, are appalling to them, and they need the stimulus of necessity to urge them to the task. The court of examiners of the College of Surgeons, requires from the candidates for surgical diplomas certificates that they have gone through at least two courses of dissections ; the examiners at Apothecaries'-hall do not require such cer- tificates. The consequence is, that many young men con- tent themselves with attending lectures, and with passing their examinations at Apothecaries'-hall, and do not apply for a diploma at the College of Surgeons. This single fact is sufficient to demonstrate to the public, that instead of throwing obstacles in the way of dissection, it is a duty which they owe to themselves to afford every possible faci- lity to its practice, and to hold out to every member of the profession, the most powerful inducements to engage in it, by rewarding with confidence those who cultivate anatomy, by making excellence in anatomy indispensable to all offices in dispensaries and hospitals, and by thus rendering it im- possible for any one who is ignorant of anatomy, to obtain rank in his profession. When a candidate presents himself for a diploma in Denmark, in his first trial he is put into a room with a subject, a case of instruments, and a memo- randum, and informed that he is to display the anatomy of the face and neck, or that of the upper extremity or that of the lower extremity: that by the anatomy Is to be under- stood, the blood-vessels, nerves, and muscles; and that as * A winter never passes without proving fatal to several etudears wh* die from injuries received in dissection.