Identifier: interstatemedica1419unse (find matches)
Title: Interstate medical journal
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Medicine
Publisher: St. Louis, : Interstate Medical Journal
Contributing Library: The College of Physicians of Philadelphia Historical Medical Library
Digitizing Sponsor: The College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the National Endowment for the Humanities

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f doing so, I have taken the liberty of calling to know the truth. Iremain, Your humble servant. On the back Sir Astley wrote: The truth is that you deserve to behanged for such an unfeeling offer.—A. C. But under other circum-stances, when the obtaining of the corpse of a person who had died ofan operation, interesting to the surgeon, was in question, Sir Astleypaid large sums. Thus his accounts for 1820 show the following en-tries in regard to obtaining the body of a man on whom he had oper- 296 FRANK. ated twenty-four years before : Coach for two there and back, £3, 12s.;guards and coachmen, 6s.; expenses for two days, £1, 14s., 6d.; car-riage of subject and porter, 12s., 6d.; subject, £7, 7s.; total, £13, 12s. This body was to be obtained, we read, cost what it may. It isno wonder, then, that of Sir Astley it might be said, that no man knewof so much of the habits, the crimes, and the few good qualities of theresurrection-men. He could obtain any subjects he pleased, however
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Fig. 2.—Barber Surgeons Hall from an old print published in 1828, where thebodies of executed criminals were legally brought for dissection. guarded, and indeed offered to do so. No one could go farther thanhe did before a committee of the House of Commons, to whom heplainly avowed: There is no person, let his situation in life be whatit may, whom, if I were disposed to dissect, I could not obtain. The lawonly enhances the price, and does not prevent the exhumation. It must not be supposed that all the bodies which were supplied tothe schools were disinterred. Many of them were stolen or procuredby false pretenses before burial, and that some bodies were obtained by RESURRECTION DAYS. 297 murder there can be no doubt. The exposure caused by the trials ofBurke and Hare in Edinburgh, and Bishop and Williams in London, sub-stantiates this. The ranks of the resurrection-men were largely re-cruited from the custodians of cemeteries who had lost their positions.The slightest vigilance on

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