232 HUMAN DISSECTION. ITS DRAMA AND STRUGGLE 



the rear of the University of Virginia, at Charlottesville. The 

 course started on November 5, 1830 and was continued for four 

 months. A fee of |10 was charged students for the privilege of 

 anatomizing. This teacher was held in high regard and made a 

 great reputation for himself. 



Warner was appointed Professor of Anatomy, Physiology and 

 Surgery at the University in 1834, and began his duties there with 

 an enrollment of thirty students. He announced that he would 

 teach from the cadaver. Embarrassed by the lack of material, he 

 found it necessary to organize groups of students to undertake 

 expeditions of systematic body snatching. It was he, in association 

 with other young doctors who liked to teach, who were respon- 

 sible for chartering the Medical College of Virginia, in Richmond 

 (Blanton, '42). 



The Winchester Medical College, located in Winchester, 

 Virginia, now extinct, merits some mention, because of an epi- 

 sode which occurred there. It was chartered in 1826 and was 

 closed in 1829, but reopened in 1850 and survived until 1861. 

 During the latter period, it was able to obtain an ample supply 

 of cadavers by dint of furtive activity and much hard work. The 

 professor of anatomy, together with his students, frequently drove 

 out to the cemeteries and dug all night to get enough subjects. 



A number of students at this school became involved in an 

 incident at Harper's Ferry at the time John Brown, the aboli- 

 tionist, was there with his forces, attacking the federal arsenal. 

 This was in October of 1859. The young medics attracted by 

 the excitement, went to Harper's Ferry by train from Winchester. 

 They alighted before it reached the depot and proceeded toward 

 the scene of activity; they soon came across a dead body, which 

 had been shot in the umbilicus, lying on the bank of a river. 

 Conditioned to be on a constant search for anatomical material, 

 they obtained a box, packed the subject and shipped it back to 

 the medical college at Winchester. After it arrived there, papers 

 were found on the body which proved it to be Owen Brown, 

 the son of John Brown. The cadaver was prepared for dissection 

 and used for teaching purposes. McGuire ('38) states that the 

 specimen was shipped back north again in 1862, by General Banks, 

 of the Federal Army. This military man entered Winchester in 



