Human Remains: Dissection and Its Histories
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《新英格兰医药杂志》
Helen MacDonald has written a remarkable story, which is itself a series of stories and comparisons. Like a good Agatha Christie murder mystery, this is a tale you will not want to put down until you have finished it.
MacDonald begins by pointing out that London's Royal College of Surgeons received all the bodies of those executed for murder between 1752 and 1832. Dissection was viewed as part of the punishment at a time when respectful treatment of the bodies of the dead was highly valued. Experiments were also carried out, including a galvanic experiment on George Foster, who had been found guilty of murdering his wife and child. Giovanni Aldini, a professor at the Royal College, applied electric arcs to various parts of Foster's body, causing limbs to move, the left eye to open, and the right auricle of the heart to contract. Aldini denied that he was trying to reanimate the corpse, and rightly so, because dissection was intended not to resurrect the dead but to punish them.
The dissection of women was uncommon, a fact that led to misconceptions about the female anatomy. Between 1800 and 1832, seven women were sent to the gallows; of the five bodies that were dissected, four were of reproductive age. The famous surgeon and artist Charles Bell dissected Catherine Welch, who had been convicted of murdering her 6-week-old child. Sadly, Bell did not send any report or drawings of the dissection to the college, as had been promised.
Executions were not sufficient to provide all the bodies needed for teaching anatomy to surgeons and medical students. The deficiency led to grave robbing by so-called resurrectionists, who were often thugs. The worst of them were William Burke and William Hare, two Irishmen living in Edinburgh. They killed 16 people and sold the bodies to Dr. Robert Knox, who ran a private anatomy school. Burke and Hare most likely suffocated their victims, leaving few or no marks, a method that became known as burking; Knox probably did not suspect how the victims died. One of them, 18-year-old Mary Paterson, was made famous by a drawing done before her body was dissected. Burke and Hare were caught, and Burke was hanged and dissected. Hare escaped the gallows when he gave evidence against Burke.
MacDonald gives her stories an antipodal geographic shift when she turns to the hanging and dissection of Mary McLauchlan in Van Diemen's Land — the original name used by Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. McLauchlan had been transported to the colony of Hobart Town for a crime (receiving stolen goods) that she most likely did not commit. She was assigned to a settler and his wife. Two months later, she was pregnant. She was placed in a house of correction (a factory), and several months later, she gave birth to a son who was found dead in one of the factory privies. She was found guilty of murder, but it was never proved that the child was not stillborn. She was the first woman to be hanged and dissected in the new colony.
The remaining stories document the intrigue of Tasmanian medical politics, dissection, and the sad disappearance of the Tasmanian aborigines. William Lanney, the last aborigine, died in March 1869. His body was taken to the dissecting room in the general hospital. A surgeon, William Crowther, wanted the skull, but it had been promised to the Tasmanian Royal Society. Crowther and his son went to the dissection room at midnight, removed Lanney's skull, and substituted the skull of Thomas Ross, who had also died that day in the hospital. After burial, the rest of Lanney's body was "resurrected" and given to the Royal Society by George Stokell. Inquiries were held, but the skull seemed to have disappeared.
The jacket of the book tells us that MacDonald is a postdoctoral fellow at the Australian Centre at the University of Melbourne. She has written a remarkable book.
Donald D. Trunkey, M.D.
Oregon Health & Science University
Portland, OR 97239
trunkeyd@ohsu.edu(By Helen MacDonald. 220 p)
MacDonald begins by pointing out that London's Royal College of Surgeons received all the bodies of those executed for murder between 1752 and 1832. Dissection was viewed as part of the punishment at a time when respectful treatment of the bodies of the dead was highly valued. Experiments were also carried out, including a galvanic experiment on George Foster, who had been found guilty of murdering his wife and child. Giovanni Aldini, a professor at the Royal College, applied electric arcs to various parts of Foster's body, causing limbs to move, the left eye to open, and the right auricle of the heart to contract. Aldini denied that he was trying to reanimate the corpse, and rightly so, because dissection was intended not to resurrect the dead but to punish them.
The dissection of women was uncommon, a fact that led to misconceptions about the female anatomy. Between 1800 and 1832, seven women were sent to the gallows; of the five bodies that were dissected, four were of reproductive age. The famous surgeon and artist Charles Bell dissected Catherine Welch, who had been convicted of murdering her 6-week-old child. Sadly, Bell did not send any report or drawings of the dissection to the college, as had been promised.
Executions were not sufficient to provide all the bodies needed for teaching anatomy to surgeons and medical students. The deficiency led to grave robbing by so-called resurrectionists, who were often thugs. The worst of them were William Burke and William Hare, two Irishmen living in Edinburgh. They killed 16 people and sold the bodies to Dr. Robert Knox, who ran a private anatomy school. Burke and Hare most likely suffocated their victims, leaving few or no marks, a method that became known as burking; Knox probably did not suspect how the victims died. One of them, 18-year-old Mary Paterson, was made famous by a drawing done before her body was dissected. Burke and Hare were caught, and Burke was hanged and dissected. Hare escaped the gallows when he gave evidence against Burke.
MacDonald gives her stories an antipodal geographic shift when she turns to the hanging and dissection of Mary McLauchlan in Van Diemen's Land — the original name used by Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. McLauchlan had been transported to the colony of Hobart Town for a crime (receiving stolen goods) that she most likely did not commit. She was assigned to a settler and his wife. Two months later, she was pregnant. She was placed in a house of correction (a factory), and several months later, she gave birth to a son who was found dead in one of the factory privies. She was found guilty of murder, but it was never proved that the child was not stillborn. She was the first woman to be hanged and dissected in the new colony.
The remaining stories document the intrigue of Tasmanian medical politics, dissection, and the sad disappearance of the Tasmanian aborigines. William Lanney, the last aborigine, died in March 1869. His body was taken to the dissecting room in the general hospital. A surgeon, William Crowther, wanted the skull, but it had been promised to the Tasmanian Royal Society. Crowther and his son went to the dissection room at midnight, removed Lanney's skull, and substituted the skull of Thomas Ross, who had also died that day in the hospital. After burial, the rest of Lanney's body was "resurrected" and given to the Royal Society by George Stokell. Inquiries were held, but the skull seemed to have disappeared.
The jacket of the book tells us that MacDonald is a postdoctoral fellow at the Australian Centre at the University of Melbourne. She has written a remarkable book.
Donald D. Trunkey, M.D.
Oregon Health & Science University
Portland, OR 97239
trunkeyd@ohsu.edu(By Helen MacDonald. 220 p)