274 



DISSECTION. 



It shall be lawful for the governors, keepers, war- 

 dens, managers, and persons having lawful control 

 and management of all public hospitals, prisons, 

 almshouses, asylums, morgues, and other puolic re- 

 ceptacles for deceased persons, to deliver, under the 

 conditions hereinafter mentioned and in proportion 

 to the number of matriculated students, the bodies of 

 deceased persons therein to the professors and trus- 

 tees in all the medical colleges of the State authorized 

 by law to confer the degree of doctor of medicine. 

 And it shall be lawful for said professors and teachers 

 to receive such bodies arid use them for the purposes 

 of medical study. Medical colleges which aesire to 

 avail themselves of the provisions of this a;t, shall 

 notify said governors, keepers, wardens, and man- 

 agers of public hospitals, penitentiaries, almshouses, 

 asylums, morgues, and other public receptacles 

 for the bodies of deceased persons in the counties 

 where the colleges are situated, and in counties adja- 

 cent thereto, of such desire, and it shall be obligatory 

 upon said governors, keepers, wardens, and managers 

 to notify the proper officers of said medical colleges 

 whenever there are dead bodies in their possession 

 that come under the provisions of this act, and to de- 

 liver said bodies to said colleges on their application : 

 Provided, however^, That such remains shall not have 

 been desired for interment by any relative or friend 

 of such deceased person within forty-eight hours 

 after death : Provided, also, That the remains of no 

 pei-sons who may be known to have relatives or 

 friends shall be so delivered or received without the 

 assent of such relatives or friends: And provided, 

 That the remains of no person detained for debt, or a 

 witness, or on suspicion of a crime, or of any traveler, 

 or of any person who shall have expressed a desire in 

 his or her last illness that his or her body be interred, 

 shall be delivered or received as aforesaid, but shall 

 be buried in the usual manner : And provided, aho, 

 That in case the remains of any person so delivered 

 or received shall be subsequently claimed by any 

 relative or friend, it shall be g^iven up to said relative 

 or friend for interment : and it shall be the duty of 

 said professors and teachers to dispose of said remains 

 in accordance with the instruction of the Board of 

 Health in said localities where such medical colleges 

 are situated, after the remains have served the pur- 

 pose of study aforesaid. And for any neglect or vio- 

 lation of the provisions of this act, the party so neglect- 

 ing shall forfeit and pay a penalty of not less than 

 twenty five dollars, nor more than fifty dollars, to be 

 sued for and recovered by the health-officer of said 

 cities and places for the benefit of their department. 



Twenty-three other States of the Union have 

 declared dissection to be legal : Alabama, 

 Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, 

 Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansns, 

 Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, 

 Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New 

 Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Ver- 

 mont, and Wisconsin. In all these States the 

 law is similar in its conditions and provisions 

 to that of New York. Most of the Stares 

 have also declared disinterment of bodies to 

 be a misdemeanor, while some States have 

 made no provision but the gallows for the 

 supply of bodies for the dissecting-room. The 

 tendency at the present day, however, is strong- 

 ly toward liberal laws. 



In Paris and Vienna all bodies from the 

 public hospitals and workhouses are given to 

 the medical schools. In Gottingen the supply 

 is maintained by tbe dead from the public 

 institutions, and by the poor that are supported 

 at the expense of the state. The same condi- 

 tions exist throughout Germany. Holland 



supplies its medical colleges in a similar man- 

 ner, imposing but few restrictions. The dis- 

 section-laws of Canada, similar to those in the 

 United States, were modeled after the English. 



The facilities for dissection at the present day 

 are vast improvements upon those of forty 

 years ago. The instruments are finely made 

 and adjusted. The soap-stone or granite slab 

 has replaced the wooden plank on which the 

 cadaver was laid, and the architecture and ven- 

 tilation of the dissecting-room are now such as 

 to lend a cheerful aspect to the otherwise 

 gloomy atmosphere. A large sky-light usually 

 covers the room, which is without windows 

 and is lighted at night by electric lamps. 

 Cleanliness abounds, and no unnecessary parts 

 of a body are left in the room. The danger 

 from dissection wounds is greatly diminished 

 by the use of collodion, carbolated vaseline, 

 carbolic acid, and kindred antiseptics, which 

 are used by the students while they are at 

 work. 



The difficulty of making the vessels stand out 

 distinctly was early recognized by anatomists. 

 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, air, 

 water, ink, milk, and various colored fluids were 

 used. It soon became evident that some sub- 

 stance must be employed that would harden 

 in the vessels after injection, and suet and wax 

 were next called into requisition. Improvement 

 followed improvement, and injections of plas- 

 ter of Paris, rubber, glue, and ether found 

 adherents. But none of these methods would 

 do for prolonged dissection, and, until the in- 

 troduction of alcohol, this was almost impossi- 

 ble. At the present day, arseniate of soda is 

 almost universally used ; but chloride of zinc, 

 common salt, hyposulphite of soda, and acetate 

 of alumina still find favor. The usual method 

 of injection is, to sever the common carotid 

 artery near the root of the neck, and attach 

 the peripheral end to the syringe. A pasty 

 mass of a saturated solution of arseniate of 

 soda and plaster of Paris is then prepared, and 

 is forced through the arteries at short inter- 

 vals of time, so as not to rupture any of the 

 more delicate vessels. The preparation is 

 usually tinted with some aniline dye. When 

 the veins are injected for any purpose, a blue 

 color is used. About three quarts of the mixt- 

 ure suffices for the average body. For courses 

 in operative surgery, and for lectures on the 

 various systems, as the vascular, nervous, and 

 muscular, other methods are employed, some- 

 times more complicated than that described. 

 In Berlin, Vienna, Paris, and Heidelberg, 

 where the supply of bodies from the various 

 sources exceeds the demand, no body is 

 allowed in the dissecting-room over seven 

 days, and no injections or antiseptic prepara- 

 tions are made use of. See Hyrtl's '' Lehrbuch 

 der Anatomie des Menschen " (8th ed., Vien- 

 na, 1863); " The Gold-headed Cane "; William 

 Hunter's Introductory Lectures; and W. W. 

 Keen's "Early History of Practical Anatomy " 

 (Philadelphia, 1874). 



