346 Report from the Dissection Committee. [Ocr. 
Supposing, then, that the unclaimed bodies of our public institutions 
are consigned to the purposes of dissection, how will the matter be best 
arranged? Must all be left to the parish-officers, to grant or refuse at 
discretion? We should be little disposed to leave any thing to the dis- 
cretion of individuals, who are never likely to concur, and who are 
changing every year. No, let all be done openly and definitely. Little 
as we are disposed to add to laws, a legislative act is the only remed 
—one that shall make the unclaimed dead disposable and distributable 
to the public hospitals, and acknowledged private schools, according to 
their exigencies; not compulsorily, like a penalty, but as they are 
required, because there will be periods when few comparatively are 
wanted, and then the unrequired bodies must be buried in the usual 
course of things. This must be done under the direction of officers 
appointed by the College of Surgeons. The schools will give them 
notice of their wants; the parishes of their dead; and the officers will 
immediately direct where the body is to be taken, or if it be not 
required, will give an order for the burial. But once legalize the supply, 
and regulations will soon be effectively framed. 
The state of the laws relative to these matters will then soon bear a 
consistent appearance. At present, the dissection of the murderer is 
alone legalized. The act of robbing the grave, and the possession of a 
body, are forbidden by no statute law, nor by the common law speci- 
fically. The former has been gradually brought under the head of 
offences contra bonos mores; the mere possession of a dead body, is 
obviously not easily forced within the pale of contra bones mores ; but by an 
astute sort of inference, with the discovery of which lawyers and judges 
are usually delighted, it is stigmatized as an offence, on the ground that 
none can be legally dissected but a murderer ; the onus, therefore, is laid 
upon the possessor to prove it the body of a murderer; and if he be 
unable, the possession is an illegal act, and punishable like other deeds 
contra bonos mores. In short, neither lecturer nor student is now safe— 
possession of a body for dissection is an illegal act ; and safety can only be 
secured by shutting up the lecture-room, and abandoning the profession. 
And yet in the teeth of these sanctions and this practice of the law, 
the courts are ready to give compensation to patients, for what a jury 
shall determine to be injudicious or unskilful management of surgical 
cases, though impediments are thrown in the way, on all sides, of a 
successful prosecution of their profession, And even the very College 
of Surgeons, who might be expected to have some consideration for their 
brethren, however humble the station, and who must know the difficul- 
ties and obstructions attending the study of anatomy, insist rigorously 
upon certificates of attendance on dissection, and even personal dissection 
and operation, before they will empower a student of medicine to practise. 
Considerable numbers are positively rejected, not for want of abilities, 
or diligence, but literally for want of opportunity. ' 
The necessity for some legislative arrangement is imperative. The 
question can no longer be blinked. To secure a competent degree of 
skill, the necessary means must be sanctioned and protected, and legal 
obstructions removed. Exhumation the public indignation will itself 
suppress—it can no longer be borne with. Ignorance, also, that same 
public will as little tolerate—foreigners will be patronized—or the legis- 
lature must sanction the provision which circumstances, scarcely to be 
calculated on, fortunately furnish, at the least possible expence of painful 
feeling—the UNCLAIMED BODIES OF PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 
