Examination of the body of Mr. Richard Carlile.
The well-known Mr. Richard Carlile, bookseller, late of Fleet Street, bequeathed his body for the purpose of anatomical dissection. By permission of the governors of St. Thomas’s Hospital, his remains were removed from his residence in Bouverie Street, Fleet Street, to that Institution; and, on Tuesday last, there was a numerous assemblage of the friends of the deceased and members of the medical profession, to witness his post mortem examination. The chest and abdomen only were opened, and the necessity that existed for the knowledge of anatomy, not only to the surgeon, but to the physician, was shown. Mr. Grainger delivered a short address on the occasion, thinking that the object of the deceased would be obtained by this proceeding in public, and by a statement of the motives which, had actuated him in giving his remains for dissection.
The illustrious Bentham, actuated by the same benevolent feeling, had at the close of the last century, left his body for dissection, and that at a time when the prejudice against anatomical examinations was so great that bodies were procured with the utmost difficulty. That prejudice was perhaps less at the present time, but still sufficiently strong to interfere very materially with that due supply of subjects, so essential to the proper education of the medical student, and of such vital importance to the community at large. Such difficulties existed that no lecturer in this country had ever yet been able to complete a course of operative surgery, properly so called. Mr. Carlile deserved the approbation of all the friends of humanity for attempting to remove this prejudice by leaving his remains for anatomical purposes.
Mr. Grainger vindicated medical men from the charge of irreligion, and contended that medical and anatomical studies, if properly pursued, served to demonstrate the truth, not only of natural, but of revealed religion. The Lancet, No. 1,016, p. 774, February 18, 1843.
Watson, Printer, 3, Queen’s Head Passage, Paternoster Row.
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