Papers relative to the question of providing adequate means for the study of anatomy.

  • Ferguson, Robert, 1799-1865.
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Papers relative to the question of providing adequate means for the study of anatomy. 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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    to siippress exhumation, but to raise the price of bodies, and increase the number of exhumators.”—{Report on Anatomy, p. 8.) The money thus obtainable, has acted in two in- stances, within three years, as a premium to murder, under circumstances of unparalleled atrocity; and there is reason to fear, that so long as the same causes operate, crimes similar to those of Burke and Bishop, will continue to be perpetrated; probably with more caution and art, and therefore with dimi- nished chance of detection. Not only are our Anatomical Schools supplied by means which foster crime, but the supply even thus obtained is insufficient for the purposes of medical knowledge and the discharge of a great duty towards the public. It was proved before the Anatomical Committee that each student, during the term of his studentship, dissects on an average only one body annually—a proportion wholly insufficient for the pur- poses of complete education. Nine tenths of these indivi- duals practise Surgery as well as Medicine; and to them, thus imperfectly educated, the lives of the community must necessarily be intrusted. They supply our army, navy, and our colonies; they are located in our large provincial towns; the health of the rural population is consigned to their charge : they “ farm” our workhouses, and become the Medical atten- dants of our country dispensaries, hospitals, and jails. If in these responsible stations many among them have vindicated their character for science, it has been by patient industry, by experience acquired late and painfully, in the absence of all encouragement, and at the hazard of legal punishment. Never- theless it cannot be doubted that, as a class, they have not been peiTnitted to acquire that degree of knowledge, which greater facilities for dissection would have ensured to their well-known zeal and industry. Hence our criminal courts annually exhibit the humiliating spectacle of practitioners unprepared for the ordinary exigencies of surgical practice, punished for ignorance, by a legislature which prevents them from acquiring knowledge. B 2