It has been stated that this plan has been tried in Edinburgh, and that
experience has proved its efficacy. It was, in fact, adopted in that
city with perfect success more than a century ago. In the Council
Register for 1694, it is recorded that all unclaimed dead bodies in the
charitable institutions or in the streets, were given for dissection to
the College of Surgeons, to one or two of its individual members, and to
the professor of anatomy. This regulation, at that period, excited no
opposition on the part of the people, but effectually answered the
desired object. All the medical schools on the continent are supplied
with subjects, by public authority, in a similar manner. The following
account of the mode in which those of Paris in particular are supplied,
has been obtained from the gentleman who is at the head of the
anatomical department in that city. It is stated; 1. That the faculty of
medicine at Paris is authorized to take from the civil hospitals, from
the prisons, and from dépôts of mendicity, the bodies which are
necessary for teaching anatomy. 2. That a gratuity of eight-pence is
given to the attendants in the hospitals for each body. 3. That upon the
foundation by the National Convention, of schools of health, the
statutes of their foundation declare, that the subjects necessary for
the schools of anatomy shall be taken from the hospitals, and that since
this period, the council of hospitals, and the prefect of police, have
always permitted the practice. 4. That M. Breschet, chief of the
anatomical department of the faculty of Paris, sends a carriage daily to
the different hospitals, which brings back the necessary number of
bodies: that this number has sometimes amounted to 2,000 per annum, for
the faculty only, without reckoning those used in L’Hôpital de la Pitié,
but that since the general attention which has recently been bestowed
upon pathologic anatomy, numbers of bodies are opened in the civil and
military hospitals, and that the faculty seldom obtain more than 1,000
or 1,200. 5. That, besides the dissections by the faculty of medicine,
and those pursued in L’Hôpital de la Pitié, theatres of anatomy are
opened in all the great hospitals, for the pupils of those
establishments: that in these institutions anatomy is carefully taught,
and that pupils have all the facilities for dissection that can be
desired. 6. That the price of a body varies from four shillings to eight
shillings and sixpence. 7. That after dissection, the bodies are wrapt
in cloths, and carried to the neighbouring cemetery, where they are
received for ten-pence. 8. That the practice of exhumation is abolished:
that there are insurmountable obstacles to the return to that system,
and that bodies are never taken from burial grounds, without an order
for exhumation, which is given only when the tribunals require it for
the purpose of medico-legal investigations. 9. That though the people
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