72 Notes for the Month. 



bargain. This system is threatening annihilation to all the second-rate 

 London Evening Papers, which find their circulation chiefly in the coun- 

 try ; and the leading ones are not likely to regard the contrivers of it witii 

 a particularly charitable eye. 



An essay upon the subject of procuring " subjects" for the London 

 schools of anatomy, with which we had absolutely proposed to visit our 

 readers this month, must, for want of space, be put off" like Dr. 

 Drowsy's sermons," as Mrs. Hardcastle has it" to some fitter opportu- 

 nity." The matter was agitated in parliament, in the course of the last 

 week, in a debate upon some measure proposed to regulate the arrange- 

 ments and powers of the College of Surgeons ; but we are afraid that 

 none of the expedients suggested in the course of the discussion, are 

 likely to be valuable in real practice. Mr. Peel's proposal for adding to 

 the list of parties now liable by law to be dissected (the persons who 

 are executed for particular descriptions of felony) the farther amount of 

 all criminals, who, being convicted of such felonies, die in prison previous to 

 their execution this source of additional supply would hardly assist us much ; 

 inasmuch as the utmost it could afford would be about one supplementary 

 subject in a century. The anatomising of people who chose to commit 

 suicide, would at the first blush seem a more likely project than this ; 

 but then there is the objection the offenders would get over that pe- 

 nalty, as they do over all the rest that attach to them, by the coroner's 

 inquest finding verdicts that they were " insane." Giving up all the 

 people who die in the hospitals to be anatomized, would be a proper course, 

 and unobjectionable for no people of any consequence die in hospitals *? 

 but, then, the rabble of this country are so obstinate and prejudiced, that, if 

 they thought they were sure to be anatomized when they came out of the 

 hospitals, they would die at home rather than go into them ! One com- 

 fort is, that (unless our professors are abominably belied) we have the 

 practical benefit of the cantanckerous rogues, without any law, already, 

 Allowing people to sell their friends (this was Sir Joseph Yorke's sug- 

 gestion, if we recollect right) but we are afraid that it would be con- 

 sidered as rather violating public feeling. Living relatives would differ 

 whether or not a sale should take place ; or there would be bills filed 

 in the court of Chancery to decide which of several claimants was enti- 

 tled to the proceeds. The Times proposition comes nearest to the mark 

 That all surgeons should, at their deaths, devise their own persons to the 

 purposes of science. But then this would furnish grown male subjects 

 only we must have women and children; and such professors would 

 hardly be induced to adopt the second branch of the arrangement sug- 

 gested, and make a gift of the earthly tabernacles of their wives and 

 children. So that, upon the whole (subject to more detailed consideration, 

 in our next, or some following, number) we rather suspect that the mat- 

 ter must remain as it is ; i. e. that the surgical schools must still be 

 supplied by robbery there is less of general feeling violated by that 

 course than there could be by any other ; and that the " resurrection- 

 men" must continue to be punished when they are caught not for 

 having stolen the subjects found in their custody, but for having offended 

 public decorum by not stealing them more secretly and discreetly. Pro- 

 vided always that, in the mean time any person willing to bestow himself 

 for the benefit of his fellow-creatures shall be competent to do so ; and 

 that his word, in articulo mortis, shall be taken as tantamount to a will 

 and testament made to that purpose. 



