HUNTERIAN ORATION. S5 



escence of the public. In other countries it 

 is considered, that those who have been sup- 

 ported by the pubhc, when unable to 

 support themselves, die in its debt, and 

 that their remains may therefore, with 

 justice, be converted to the public use. 

 In England, however, the indigent who 

 suffer from illness and injury are sup- 

 ported and relieved chiefly by the liberality 

 of that benevolence which is so creditable 

 to our national character ; and much 

 as I wish for the promotion of medical 

 knowledge, I should be sorry if the 

 bodies of the poor were to be consi- 

 dered as public property without reserve 

 in our own country. For better would it 

 seem to me, that medical science should 

 cease, and our bodily sufferings continue, 

 than that the natural rights and best feel- 

 ings of humanity should not be equally 

 respected in all classes of society ; or that 

 merely because persons are poor, they 

 should be prevented from paying the last 

 tribute of respect and regard to their de- 

 parted relatives by attending their remains 

 to the grave. Yet if the directors of 



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