The body snatchers / James Moores Ball.

  • Ball, James Moores, 1863-1929.
Date:
1989
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The body snatchers / James Moores Ball. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    CHAPTER X RESPECTABLE RESURRECTIONISTS Science, like politics, makes strange bedfellows. Alliances between the most eminent anatomists and surgeons on the one hand, and the most despicable of grave- robbers on the other, was made imperative, less than a century ago, by the apathy, the ignorance, and the indifference of the so-called statesmen of the United Kingdom. By the term “respectable resurrectionists” is meant those men who, actuated solely by the desire to advance their knowledge of anatomy and surgery for the benefit of mankind, often risked their freedom and sometimes their lives for the general good. From the time of Hippocrates to the present day, the history of the medical profession has been made glorious by the self- sacrificing spirit of its members. Whoever heard of physicians and surgeons ignoring the call of duty, or by unholy alliance agreeing to strike for higher fees ? Thanks be to Almighty God, that priests, prelates, and physicians are of a weld and weave different from those of the roughscuff which now rules a large part of the so-called “civilised ” world! The list of “ respectable resurrectionists ” might be made a long one ; but here only a few names will be mentioned. Andreas Vesalius, whom Mr Henry Morley named the “Luther of Anatomy,” in 1536, secured his first human skeleton by stealing the remains of