546 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



offered an exciting spectacle. The race was neck and neck, and woe 

 betide whoever fell in the way! Old and young passers-by were 

 thrown down in the mtlee caused by scores of agile-limbed fellows 

 contending for the Knox goal. The rare and intense enthusiasm that 

 Knox created in his class belongs to the j^ast ; no such high fervor is 

 manifested by the student of these latter days. The reason is ob- 

 vious : he who called it forth is gone, and his counterpart is nowhere 

 to be found ; indeed, it is more than doubtful if another Knox will 

 ever appear before a British audience. Old pupils of Knox, both j3ri- 

 vately and publicly, still sj)eak with sparkling eyes of the grand 

 excitement and rush for favored seats in his lecture-room." 



Robert Knox was, moreover, a hater of all humbug, and an unspar- 

 ing critic of shams of every sort. He ridiculed the superficial method 

 of teaching anatomy practised by rival lecturers, and in his sudden 

 bursts of oratory, his sharp, pithy sentences, which came like sparks 

 from a furnace, often created havoc among doubtful medical reputa- 

 tions, and his telling sarcasms would often circulate through Scotland. 

 It was therefore impossible that he should not make many enemies. 

 His very eminence and popularity also could not fail to be a source of 

 hostility on the j^art of the envious and jealous. Often his class 

 seemed spellbound under the influence of a speech ; and as he wound 

 up his lecture with increasing emphasis, and a sweeping torrent of 

 rhetoric, and bowed his exit, the crowded audience would often rise 

 en masse, waving their hats and handkerchiefs, and cry : " Bravo ! 

 bravo ! Knox forever, and one cheer more ! " All this was delightful ; 

 but, as this world is constituted, men often have to pay dearly for such 

 things ; and so did Dr. Knox. 



Anatomy is the foundation of surgery, and the basis of all rational 

 medical science. To know the structure of the human orsranization is 

 indispensable both to the progress and the intelligent j)ractice of the 

 healing art. A knowledge of anatomy is therefore the first condition 

 of the most important and beneficent of all occupations that of alle- 

 viating human suffering and saving human life. But the knowledge 

 of the human body that is necessary to remedy its diseases cannot be 

 obtained except by studying it through and through ; and this can 

 only be done when the corporeal fabric becomes useless for other pur- 

 poses. Dead bodies, worthless for any thing else, are invaluable for 

 dissection, and if dissected they must of course be obtained for the 

 purpose. Yet, with an absurd inconsistency, goA^ernments, while 

 exacting of medical students a knowledge that can only be procured 

 by the dissection of corpses, have at the same time outlawed the pro- 

 curement of subjects. Such has been the policy of states for centu- 

 ries, and in pursuing it the civil power has but given expression to one 

 of the profoundest prejudices and most wide-spread superstitions of 

 human nature. Antipathy to dissection after death is a deeply-rooted 



