The Ptolemy princes Philadelphus and Euergetes, who enabled their physicians to dissect the human body, and prevented the prejudices of ignorance and superstition from compromising the welfare of the human race, were far in advance of their times. Long after their day, the Koran denounced as unclean the person who touched a corpse, and |150| the rules of Islamism still forbid dissection; the old Moslem doctors only found opportunities of studying the bones of the human body in the cemeteries. Not until the days of Henry VIII. did the law make any provision for the cultivation and practice of the art of dissection. In 1540, more perhaps to strike terror into malefactors, than from any enlightened notion of forwarding knowledge, the Legislature gave permission to the masters of the Mystery of Barbers and Surgeons of London to take annually four persons, put to death for felony, for anatomies, and to make incision of the same dead bodies, or otherwise to order the same, after their discretions, at their pleasure, for their further insight and better knowledge, instruction, insight, learning, and experience, in the science or faculty of surgery [412]. Elizabeth, in 1565, made a similar grant to the College of Physicians, that they, observing all decent respect for human flesh, “might dissect the four felons.” By 25 Geo. II. cap. 37 (1752), the bodies of all murderers executed in London and Westminster were to be given to the surgeons to be dissected and anatomised. But the legal supply of human bodies for anatomical examination still continued insufficient fully to provide the means of knowledge; and in order to furnish the necessary subjects, divers great and grievous crimes and murders were committed, the money paid, being the incentive. So, in 1832, the Anatomy Act [413] was passed. This Act proves clearly that Parliament regarded anatomy as a legal practice, and it provides for the licensing of those practising anatomy, allows any executor or other person, having lawful possession of any dead person (and not being an undertaker, etc.), to hand over the body for dissection (respect, however, being had to |151| the wishes of the deceased or his known relatives). Inspectorships of schools of anatomy were likewise established. In Canada, the bodies of convicts who die in a penitentiary, if unclaimed by the relatives, may be delivered to the professors of anatomy in any medical college, or to an inspector of anatomy [414].