146 HUMAN DISSECTION. ITS DRAMA AND STRUGGLE 



recourse, and that was the resurrectionists. In 1820, Sir Astley 

 Cooper, one of the most famous surgeon-anatomists of his time, 

 paid over 13 pounds to two, Hollis and Vaughan, for making it 

 possible for him to examine the body of one of his patients, whose 

 iliac artery, he had ligated twenty-four years before. The sub- 

 ject had been buried in Beecles, County of Suffolk. The payment 

 involved money for a coach, guards and coachmen, expenses for 

 two days, a carriage and a porter for the return transportation 

 and finally the amount paid over to the pair who exhumed tlie 

 body. It was not unusual for a surgeon to dispatch suitable men a 

 distance of 100 miles or more for such a purpose, making it an 

 expensive post-mortem examination. Even the physicians, were 

 not averse to venturing forth to satisfy their curiosity about op- 

 erations previously performed. This took time, travel, risk and 

 money, let alone the disagreeableness encountered in handling 

 the body. 



Sir Astley Cooper is mentioned in the previous paragraph. 

 Probably no other surgeon of his time performed more anatomical 

 dissections or had more familiarity with exhumators. He began 

 anatomizing at the age of sixteen, in 1784, under the jurisdic- 

 tion of Henry Cline, surgeon and teacher of anatomy, at St. 

 Thomas' Hospital in London. The class was so large, the avail- 

 able space so cramped, which Cooper disliked, that he got per- 

 mission from his teacher to transfer cadavers to the latter 's home 

 where he worked at his leisure, sometimes far into the night. 

 He possessed an extraordinary zeal for such study and later con- 

 tinued the practice daily in his own residence even after he was 

 internationally recognized as a famous surgeon for his accomplish- 

 ments at Guy's Hospital. 



The peak of the resurrectionist movement was between the 

 years 1800 and 1832 and it was during this period that Sir Astley 

 Cooper was most active. He appeared before the special Parlia- 

 mentary Committee at the time this legislative group was con- 

 sidering passage of an anatomy act. He had a low opinion of all 

 body snatchers classed as the "rascal" type and so testified. Quot- 

 ing him, "They are the lowest dregs of degradation. I do not 

 know that I can describe them better; there is no crime they 

 would not commit, and, as to myself, if they would imagine that 



