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The necessity of disinterment, under existing circumstances cover

The necessity of disinterment, under existing circumstances

Chapter 2: WILLIAM COOKE, Surgeon.
By William Cooke
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A surgeon addresses the city mayor to defend his conduct after prosecution for possessing an exhumed body, explaining his change of venue to avoid prejudiced jurors and recounting the circumstances of the removal, identification, and searches that followed. He criticizes parish officers and magistrates for overzealous and vindictive procedures, including an attempted felony charge over minor missing linen, and argues that reliance on precarious supplies of buried bodies hinders anatomical instruction. He urges reforms to provide lawful, respectful access to corpses for medical education while acknowledging public sensibilities and proposing measures to facilitate the acquisition of subjects for study.

THE

NECESSITY OF DISINTERMENT,

UNDER EXISTING CIRCUMSTANCES.

THE

NECESSITY OF DISINTERMENT,

UNDER EXISTING CIRCUMSTANCES.

BEING

AN APOLOGY, &c.,

IN

A LETTER TO THE MAYOR OF EXETER.

BY

WILLIAM COOKE, Surgeon.

“All foreigners express astonishment, when informed, that the teachers of Anatomy, in this country, are obliged to depend, for the power of communicating this most necessary and important knowledge, upon a precarious supply of bodies, which have been suffered to become putrid, and afterwards been interred. This is, indeed, a national disgrace; and formerly I would not willingly have acknowledged the fact of the disinterment of bodies, because it tends to disquiet the best feelings of the public. The newspaper writers, however, have so blazoned it forth, as to render any attempt to conceal it unavailing.”

Mr. Abernethy.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED BY SHERWOOD, GILBERT, AND PIPER,

PATERNOSTER-ROW.

MDCCCXXVII.

Mills, Jowett, and Mills, Bolt-court, Fleet-street.