1828.] Report from the Dissection Committee. 341 
repeal of one law—that for dissecting murderers—and the enactment of 
another. He himself drew up an engagement, binding the friends of 
the subscribers to surrender their bodies, after death, for the benefit of 
anatomy, to which he fixed his own signature, and in about a fortnight 
98 other names were added, not only of the medical profession, but 
of clergymen, lawyers, country gentlemen, and titled persons. This 
bequest is to be sanctioned by law ; but even then, the enforcing, con- 
trary to the wishes of friends, and those wishes will be sure to be 
adverse, will be as invidious and as odious as the very act of exhuma- 
tion. The anatomists would not get one out of fifty. 
The fact of inadequate supply being thus unquestionable, and every 
remedy, hitherto adopted or suggested, vague or ineffectual, we may 
turn our attention to that sole source, which the Committee, like our- 
selves, after the fullest investigation, concur in recommending, as at 
once practicable, and liable to the fewest objections of a serious kind— 
the unclaimed bodies of our public institutions; and by unclaimed 
bodies, we mean—not those who have none to bury them at their own 
expense—but such as are absolutely in that forlorn condition as to have 
none who claim affinity with them—none who appear to accompany 
their remains to the grave. 
With respect to this source of supply, then, is it, in the first place, 
adequate ? for if it be not, it will be useless to argue on the fitness or 
the justifiableness. 
What, then, is the average demand for bodies? The students, we 
see, amount to about 800 ; but out of these, it seems, for one reason or 
another, not more than 500 ever dissect. The leading surgeons, and 
lecturers on anatomy, though universally they allow the period assigned 
for anatomical and surgical education is much too short, consider three 
bodies for each pupil as competent on the present system for all pur- 
poses, for the two seasons, consisting of sixteen months. Those who 
have been accustomed to foreign schools speak of a larger number, and 
even think, apparently with some reason, ten or twelve not too many 
for dissection and operation. The students of America often dissect 
thirty. The rest are more practical men, that is, they are more disposed 
to look at the average of what is usually demanded, and usually accom- 
plished, than at what ought, or what would be desirable to be done. 
The majority of students are of very humble origin, of very humble 
fortunes, and are destined, by inevitable circumstances, to very humble 
stations in society—one-half of them never dreaming of making 3001. a 
year in country towns and villages. Three bodies, then, may be 
assigned to each, which amounts to 1,500 for the two seasons—the period 
of anatomical education. 
- To meet this demand, the only legalized source is the bodies of 
-murderers—producing, fortunately, not half-a-dozen in the year, in the 
environs of London—which may, therefore, very safely be thrown out 
of consideration—the number is not worth the enumeration. About a 
hundred, it has been suggested, might be obtained from the hulks, by 
the authority of the Secretary of State, if they were to be seized indis- 
ceigately ; but this would be to proceed in the spirit of penalty, and 
cutting up is no part of their sentence—they have most of them friends 
too. About as many more might be obtained from suicides—but suicides 
also have friends—and to take them indiscriminately is equally objec- 
tionable. The unclaimed, of either class, could not be very numerous. 
Not an hundred could be reckoned upon from the whole of these sources, 
a 
