In the obituary of the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for 1788 is this notice: “At his apartments at Chelsea College, in his 95th year, Messenger Mounsey, M.D. For a considerable time he was family physician to the late Earl of Godolphin, and physician to Chelsea College. His character and humour bore a striking resemblance to that of the celebrated Dean Swift. By his will he has directed that his body shall not suffer any funeral ceremony, but undergo dissection; after which the ‘remainder of his carcase’ (to use his own expression) ‘may be put into a hole, or crammed into a box with holes, and thrown into the Thames,’ at the pleasure of the surgeon. The surgeon to whom he has assigned this charge is Mr. Forster, of Union-Court, Broad Street. In pursuance of the Doctor’s singular will, Mr. Forster has since given a discourse in the theatre of Guy’s Hospital to the medical students and a considerable number of intelligent visitors, on the dissection of the body.... Mr. Forster ... vindicated the Doctor from all affectation, vanity, or whim, in having ordered his body for dissection and prohibited all funeral ceremony, stating that whatever of singularity might appear in his will was resolvable merely into a zeal for knowledge, and a desire of benefiting mankind, as he conceived that a dissection of his body would lead to the illustration of much useful truth. He mentioned also the philosophic contempt in which the Doctor held all funeral pomp, and every species of unnecessary form.”