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    the medical student , and the chief information he has to seek lies concealed where the probe or dissecting knife can alone disclose it . Who , for instance , would consent to the amputation of a leg , or to be cut for the stone , by one who , however skilful or ingenious he might on all hands be allowed to be , had . never had the opportunity of making himself thoroughl acquainted with all the minutiae belonging to the parts by actual operation on a real subject ? And if a single life be saved by each living surgeon in

    consequence solely of his practical and experimental skill in operating upon dead bodies , the value of the purchase is inestimable and worth any sacrifice to attain . Unfortunately , though this principle will be generally admitted , causes have , from time immemorial , been operating to counteract its beneficial tendency , and have placed our judgment and feelings in irreconcileable opposition . Our public journals are daily exhibiting the absurd anomaly of magistrates being called upon to punish what they must inwardly acknowledge to be for the public good ; and our anxiety for the welfare of the living is absorbed in horror for the violation of the rites of the dead .

    How , then , can these contradictions be made to harmonize ? If the present laws are made more severe , we shall only increase the difficulty of procuring subjects without decreasing the demand ; and if all restraint is abandoned by our Legislature , as well may we at once decline all our churchyard burials , for there will be no security whatever for our dearest relatives retaining their cold and silent beds for even a single night after interment . If we place our dependence upon the supply which would be afforded by

    criminals who may be placed by execution in the hands of the Sheriff , how totally inadequate would be this supply ! If every county furnished two cases annually , the number would be about 100 to supply perhaps not fewer than 12 , 000 students , rating the male population of England at 6 , 000 , 000 , and one surgeon to every 500 . Supposing , then , that we resort ( as has been so frequently hinted ) to the Hospitals and Poor-houses , and use all the unclaimed bodies for the purpose required , —this may be a reasonable mode of

    proceeding ; for , no kindred feelings being injured , of course no complaints would be made . But , without pretending to know the secrets of the " charnel house ' in the slightest degree , I apprehend that this source is already made available to its full extent , and the supply found far inadequate to the demand . Else , why do our resurrectionists ply their calling under such universal execration ? The late disclosures at Liverpool-shew an extent of dealing far beyond what the public had previously conceived ; and no doubt many

    a funeral service is pronounced over a coffin laden with ballast , which never teemed with animal life ; thus carrying on a farcical mockery in the very face of Heaven . In France , I am told , the average price of a subject is about ten shillings ; in England ii is six or eight pounds , which proves that with us the supply is still attended with much difficulty . As the last resource , the country is called upon to petition the Legislature to "do something ; " but no one ( as far as ray information extends ) ventures to hint what that something should be . If it should be to authorize Hospital Committees and Overseers to surrender their dead promiscuously into the

    hands of the faculty , this I conceive would be an outrageous violation of the common feelings of humanity which the country would not and ought not to endure . The prejudices of the poor are as strong , and in this case would be as delicate , as those of the rich , and deserve as much protection . However Providence may permit inequalities in rank and comforts during life , they cease at its termination , and those humiliating agents , the worms , know of no distinction of persons between the prince and the pauper .

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    Voluntary Dissection . 85

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1827, page 85, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1793/page/5/