CHRONOLOGICAL HIGHLIGHTS ON HUMAN DISSECTION 267 



At first the supply of subjects was plentiful in Germany, 

 probably up to 1882. After this, relatives claiming the bodies 

 of their kin, the activity of burial societies and the zeal exhibited 

 by priests, embalmers and gravediggers to collect fees, created 

 ^a scarcity. During the 1928-1929 academic season, 2,277 medical 

 students were in Berlin alone; as many as seventeen studied on 

 i-one specimen. Sometimes, the class was divided in half, each 

 taking turns in dissecting on one. One brain sufficed for twenty- 

 five to thirty pupils. Teachers were overloaded with work because 

 there were too few of them. 



The same fate befell Holland as Germany. In 1934, many 

 universities there, as well as in other parts of Europe, were 

 experiencing difficulties in obtaining a sufficient number of ca- 

 davers. In that country, they had to be exported from the colonies. 

 Due, in part, to the effectiveness of private, charitable and re- 

 ligious societies, which claimed nearly every body, the flow of 

 ^subjects to the medical schools in Austria practically stopped. 

 This began as early as 1912. By 1921, first year students had little 

 opportunity to dissect and had to be satisfied with skeletons and 

 museum specimens. Now and then, a group of students could 

 watch another anatomize a subject. By 1930, the problem was no 

 better. 



Very little factual material is available on the latest events 

 in Switzerland, Portugal, Italy or Spain. Spain does not have a 

 spectacular record in human dissection because the Spanish gov- 

 ernment was reluctant to authorize the practice. It did not get 

 under way until the 19th Century. 



In China, the medical profession has always been looked upon 

 as a fourth- or fifth-rate occupation. Human dissection is con- 

 tary to their ideas of future life and it is generally looked upon 

 with horror. In 1913, dissection of a Chinaman, especially by a 

 foreigner would have been sufficient grounds for a riot. Medical 

 education and schools there are tolerated rather than encouraged. 

 In 1920, only twelve out of twenty-six institutions had any sort 

 of dissection, and there was no regular and sufficient source of 



