228 HUMAN DISSECTION. ITS DRAMA AND STRUGGLE 



propagated scandalous and unfounded reports against my char- 

 acter, and, whereas when properly applied to has refused to give 

 an explanation of his conduct or the satisfaction which every gen- 

 tleman has a right to demand, and which no one having claim to 

 that character can refuse, I am, therefore, compelled to the only 

 step left me and post the said Dr. Nathaniel Chapman as a liar 

 and a coward and a scoundrel.— Granff/Ze Sharp Pattison." 



For this announcement, Pattison was arrested. The challenge 

 to a duel was refused by Chapman on the grounds of his age, a 

 large family and the obligations of his position. He wrote, "It 

 really would seem, under any circumstances not quite fit to have 

 introduced my course of lectures with the spectacle of a duel. . . . 

 With Mr. Pattison it is entirely different. He is an adventurer 

 with a tainted reputation, which he hoped to repair." 



This was not the end of the affair. The feud continued for 

 several years. Things came to a climax when Pattison openly and 

 publicly insulted Chapman before his brother-in-law. General 

 Thomas Cadwalader. A duel with pistols, was arranged and took 

 place somewhere in Delaware. Both parties displayed great cool- 

 ness, but Pattison came off the victor, wounding Cadwalader in 

 his pistol arm near the wrist. The ball traversed the entire length 

 of the forearm and lodged in the head of the ulna. Cadwalader 

 put a shot through the skirt of Pattison's coat near the waist 

 (Figge, '57; Miller, '18). 



The University of Maryland was one of the first medical 

 schools, in America, to make human dissection by medical stu- 

 dents compulsory. This practice was instituted in 1833 about the 

 same time it was adopted at the University of Edinburgh. By 1850, 

 of the sixteen medical schools in the United States, only three 

 required anatomizing. Introduced at this time also was the in- 

 stallation of gaslights in the anatomical laboratory which en- 

 abled pupils to work on bodies in the evenings. It wasn't until 

 1882 that Maryland passed an anatomy act; however, before that 

 Baltimore was being called the "Paris of America," because of 

 the adequacy of its anatomical supply (Figge, '57). 



The only known "burking" in the United States occurred 

 in Baltimore, in 1886. It became a famous case and involved a 

 well-known woman by the name of Emily Brown; she was the 



