Old-Time Makers of Medicine: The Story of The Students And Teachers of the Sciences Related to Medicine During the Middle AgesWalsh, James J. (James Joseph)
History
Old-Time Makers of Medicine: The Story of The Students And Teachers of the Sciences Related to Medicine During the Middle Ages
Walsh, James J. (James Joseph)
Medicine, Medieval; Physicians
"What the members are to which these nerves come cannot well
be seen in such a dissection as this, but it should be
liquefied with rain water, and this is not contemplated in the
present body." (Leaf 60, lines 31-33.)
"After the veins you will note many muscles and many large and
strong cords, the complete anatomy of which you will not
endeavor to find in such a body but in a body dried in the sun
for three years, as I have demonstrated at another time; I
also declared completely their number, and wrote the anatomy
of the muscles of the arms, hands, and feet in a lecture which
I gave over the first, second, third, and fourth subjects."
(Leaf 61, lines 1-7.)
Very probably the best evidence that we have of the comparative
frequency at least of dissection at this time is to be found in the
records of a trial for body-snatching that occurred in Bologna. The
details would remind one very much of what we know of the difficulties
with regard to dissection in America a couple of generations ago, when
no bodies were provided by law for dissection purposes. In the course of
some studies for the history of the New York State Medical Society (New
York, 1906) I found that nearly every one of the first half dozen
presidents of the New York Academy of Medicine, which is not much more
than sixty years old, had had body-snatching experiences when they were
younger. Dr. Samuel Francis, the medico-historical writer, tells of a
personal expedition across the ferry in the winter time, bringing a body
from a Long Island graveyard. In order to avoid the constables on the
Long Island side and the police on the New York side, because there had
been a number of cases of body-snatching recently and the authorities
were on the lookout, the corpse was placed sitting beside the physician
who drove the wagon, with a cloak wrapped around it, as if it were a
living person specially protected against the cold. Similar experiences
were not unusual. The lack of bodies for dissection is sometimes
attributed to religious scruples, but they have very little to do with
it, as at all times men have refused to allow the bodies of their
friends to be treated as anatomical material. This is the natural
feeling of abhorrence and not at all religious. It is only when there
are many unclaimed bodies of strangers and the poor, as happens in large
cities, that there can be an abundance of anatomical material.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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