338 Report from the Dissection Committee. - [Ocr. 
penitentiaries of the neighbourhood of London. This was, in fact, our 
own suggestion ; and it is matter of self-gratulation, that this publication, 
which aims at mixing the utile dulci, anticipated this phalanx of profes- 
sional persons, and that the whole body together were utterly unable to 
suggest another expedient. The returns made to the order of the Com- 
mittee by the parishes, though not yet complete, fully realize our anti- 
cipations—from that single source ; our conjectures are completely esta- 
blished, and the supply attainable from the whole of the sources above 
stated is evidently abundant for all occasions, measured by the more 
moderate demands of the most emment of the profession examined before 
the Committee. 
The report contains the evidence of men of the highest reputation, 
and undoubtedly of the best opportunities for gaining information, whose 
sentiments could in no other way have been got at ; the communications 
have been freely and frankly given ; and we now travel, no longer on the 
slippery ground of conjecture and probability, but on the firm footing of 
experience and intelligence. We shall be doing our readers no unwel- 
come service by laying before them the results. 
The study of anatomy, as a general pursuit in the medical profession, 
is comparatively new. To the time of William Hunter, lecturers illus- 
trated their discourses by the exhibition of the bodies of animals, and 
even gave instructions relative to operations in the same way. In his 
memorial to Lord Bute, he describes the students as not exercising them- 
selves in dissecting human bodies, because they had no opportunities ; 
and, indeed, he might have added, the necessity for such dissection was 
not very deeply impressed upon any but himself. His object was to 
obtain the royal protection for the institution of a school of anatomy ; 
but though he undertook himself to build a theatre, and endow it with 
his own museum, and even with a salary for a professor, such were the 
stubborn prejudices existing even in that quarter, that all his efforts 
were useless. But, zealous in his object, and not to be daunted by 
neglect or rebuff, he resolutely pursued his purpose, and, before his 
death, had the satisfaction of leaving behind him, he believed, many 
better anatomists than himself. But the means of procuring bodies for 
the prosecution of this favourite object were all illegal ; he was obliged 
to trust altogether to disinterments. For a time, these were adequate to 
the demand for bodies ; and the numbers yet required were compara- 
tively so few, they were readily obtained without exciting much observa- 
tion. The offence seldom came before the public notice ; and when it 
did, was scarcely regarded as a penal offence; and offenders, when 
caught in the fact, were usually dismissed with impunity, or occasionally 
a ducking. 
The more anatomy was studied, the more important and indispensable 
appeared the study of it. A medical education, even of the lowest 
description, soon came to be considered defective without it: a person 
wholly ignorant, was degraded in the eyes of his brethren, and distrusted 
by his more intelligent patients. Students of anatomy accordingly mul- 
tiplied. Im 1793, Mr. Abernethy states the number at 200; Dr. — 
Macartney computes them, in 1798, at 300; and Mr. Brooks, in 1823, 
at 1,000. The existing number is probably about 800, or below ; the 
diminishing series is accounted for by pupils visiting foreign countries— 
200 are known to be at Paris; and the cause is the increasing difficulty 
of obtaining subjects in England. 
