Remarks on the Anatomy Bill now before Parliament : in a letter addressed to the Right Hon. the Lord Althorp, and given to the members of either House on their personal or written application to the publisher / by G.J. Guthrie.

  • Guthrie, G. J. (George James), 1785-1856.
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the Anatomy Bill now before Parliament : in a letter addressed to the Right Hon. the Lord Althorp, and given to the members of either House on their personal or written application to the publisher / by G.J. Guthrie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    of a murdered person is the most difficult part of the crime to accomplish. It is the body which usually causes the alarm, excites attention, and leads to the discovery and subsequent conviction of the offender. But in all these cases, if the murderer exercises but a common degree of caution, he is almost sure to escape detection, to avoid even suspicion. If Bishop and Williams had not been so hardened (and I almost fear to express my belief in it) by repeated success in disposing of the bodies of murdered persons, as to think themselves secure from all chance of discovery, they would not have offered a body stained with blood for sale. Anatomists know full well that unless teeth ax-e drawn from a living body, or one just deprived of life, the gums do not bleed. They know that blood does not follow a cut on the forehead of a dead man ; and if this sign of violence had not been present, and the body had been kept three or four days longer, until it had lost its freshness, I have no hesitation in affirming that Bishop and Williams would have been yet alive to commit more murders. The ways of depriving man of life without leaving the slightest signs of injury, are so many, so simple, and, so secure from detection, that if the traffic in dead bodies is not put a stop to, the life of every man will be in danger. New and unknown crimes will spring up in the country; revenge will give an impulse to the hand of the assassin; other motives than gain will stimulate to the deed, and other men in other spheres of life than Burke or Bishop or Williams, will follow in their footsteps. The time has arrived when something ought to be done. The poor require protection, the lame, the sick, the blind, the helpless, the thoughtless, and the inconsiderate may be daily sacrificed with impunity ; the parent may be deprived of his offspring, the child left helpless and destitute through the loss of its parent, and left perhaps to future misery and crime, whilst nothing is done to pre- vent it. The rich are free from this evil; and shall it be said that they stand by and suffer the poor to be so treated, in order that they may receive the advantage without partaking of the danger ? I would not wish to be unjust, or even too severe, but I cannot help thinking, that if our legislators were alike exposed to it, they would not be long before they found the means of removing it. The fear of the loss of popularity, or whatever more conscien- tious scruples they might have, would yield to the extent and the proximity of the evil. There are, I believe, only two ways of proceeding. The one is, to shut up the schools of anatomy and forbid dissection, and the traffic in dead bodies altogether, under pain of death or transportation. The other is, to regulate the schools of anatomy, by a legislative measure, and to supply a sufficient number of dead bodies for dissection in such way as shall effec- tually prevent the occurrence of these crimes in future, and admit of the science of anatomy being cultivated with advantage and safety to the public. It is to this latter mode I shall confine my present observations. In my former letter, page 31, I pointed out the five following sources from which a sufficient supply of dead bodies might be obtained, and in a manner which appears to me to be quite unobjectionable, viz. 1. All persons executed, and for all offences whatsoever. 2. All persons who die under sentence for criminal offences, whether in the hulks, gaol, penitentiary, or elsewhere. 3. All persons who die in gaol, penitentiary, or other place of detention.