A POPULAR VERDICT. <;47 



feeliug that lias been manifested by all nations, creeds, and peoples 

 Egyptian, Greek, Koman, Mohammedan, Christian, and. Jew. The 

 primitive Christians, as evinced by their epitaphs, cursed the disturbers 

 of their remains in the Roman Catacombs. When science was regarded 

 as little else than magic, and diseases were ascribed to the influence of 

 the devil, physicians were looked upon as sorcerers, and it was but 

 natural that those who considered that their bodies were destined to 

 resurrection should entertain a hatred and horror of those wlio would 

 cut it up in the dissecting-room for base purposes of utility. And 

 when governments in modern times began to concede a restricted privi- 

 lege of dissection, the mode of doing it only served to heighten the 

 horror with which the operation was popularly regarded. For three 

 centuries the law increased the infamous reputation of dissection bv 

 making it follow the work of the gallows. These feelings were pecu- 

 liarly intense in theological Scotland, so that the modern medical schools 

 had the greatest difliculty in getting even a few subjects for anatomical 

 study. The necessity of having them, however, created a special "craft 

 of body-snatchers and robbers of graveyards. Nothing was more cal- 

 culated to infuriate the pojuilace than to discover that a grave had been 

 violated. The church-yard was a sacred precinct, " God's acre," and 

 the removal of a body from it was treated as an impious interference 

 with the plans of Providence respecting the great resurrection the 

 body-stealers being accordingly named " resurrectionists." The men 

 who took to this vocation were of the lowest and most brutal sort. 

 None but base and desperate rascals, indifl^erent to public detestation, 

 Avould pursue a business so reprobated by all classes, and so the very 

 quality of the men added repulsiveness to the occupation. Yet physi- 

 cians were constantly compelled to cooperate with these wretches ; 

 that is, to buy their plunder and keep their secrets, as the very first 

 condition of sound medical education. But government, with its 

 legal enactments, joined the superstitious masses in arresting the work 

 of anatomy and making it unlawful and impracticable. The physi- 

 cians petitioned the authorities for relief, and were answered with 

 more stringent enactments, prosecutions, and spies and detectives 

 watching: the doors of medical schools. These schools in Edinburgh 

 were sacked by mobs or starved into suspension by the impossibility 

 of obtaining subjects. "The law virtually proclaimed that the sur- 

 geon should possess aptitude and skill as well as a formal license to 

 practise ; nay, it went further, and subjected him who failed to dis- 

 play proper skill to pecuniary forfeiture in the civil courts at the 

 instigation of any dissatisfied patient ; yet the only mode of acquir- 

 ing that skill namely, from dissections of the dead clandestinely 

 obtained was in the criminal court held to be a misdemeanor, punish- 

 able by fine and imprisonment." 



Such was the state of things in Edinburgh when Dr. Knox en- 

 tered upon the public teaching of anatomy. With the unprecedent- 



