LONDON CONTINUED--LITERARY AND OTHER WORK, 1820-1834.
The 'Treatise on Fever' held an important place in the development of
that sanitary ideal to the realisation of which my grandfather
afterwards devoted himself almost exclusively; but in the course of the
years which are treated of in this chapter, he wrote much on other
subjects.
During this time severe money losses had necessitated the breaking up of
the establishment in Trinity Square; retrenchment became a duty; Mrs
Southwood Smith went abroad with the three children of the second
marriage[11] to carry on their education; and (his two elder daughters,
Caroline and Emily, being engaged in teaching away from home) my
grandfather once more retired to a strictly studious and professional
life at his consulting-rooms in New Broad Street, giving much time to
literary work, including the writing of a large number of physiological
articles for the 'Penny Encyclopædia.'
Dr Southwood Smith at this period assisted in founding the 'Westminster
Review.' This Review, supported as it was by men of great ability and
earnest thought, took, as is well known, a leading place in the
promotion of the political and social reforms of the day.
His own contributions to it were many. Besides the articles on
"Quarantine and Sanitary Laws" already mentioned, the one on
"Education," which appeared in the first number, may be specially
referred to.
There was also one calling attention to the horrors arising from there
being no proper provision for supplying the anatomical schools with the
means of dissection, which led to very practical results.
"Body-snatching" is now an extinct crime. Such was the name given to the
practice of robbing graves of the bodies of the dead in order to sell
them for the purpose of dissection. Such practices were an outrage
against all the feelings which render the resting-places of the dead
hallowed spots. One can imagine the horror which the friends of the
newly interred must have experienced in finding that their graves had
been violated during the night; and worse still were the midnight scenes
when the work was interrupted by the police, and struggles ensued.
The men who carried on this trade were called "resurrection-men": they
were a depraved and dangerous class, and if the state of things then
existing had caused no other evil than that of educating such a class,
it would still have been worth much effort to get it remedied.
Without bodies for dissection medical education was impossible, and at
that time there was only one legal means by which they could be
obtained: those of executed criminals were made over to the medical
profession for the purpose of dissection. But this source was, happily,
even then a scanty one. Until, therefore, some other provision was made,
the employment of "resurrection-men," though against the law, and in
itself revolting to the professors of anatomy, was a necessity.
The difficulty was an increasing one. The wretched men whose trade it
was to supply the medical schools were punished with imprisonment and
heavy fines, and were, not unnaturally, regarded with abhorrence by the
mob--such abhorrence that it was often difficult to protect them from
its fury when arrested. In Scotland, especially, this popular feeling
was so strong that disgraceful outrages were committed against those
even _suspected_ of being concerned in exhumation; the churchyards were
watched, and the obstacles in obtaining subjects for the schools had
become so many that the students were fast deserting them. Indeed
throughout Great Britain it appeared as if there would soon be a general
desertion of all the native schools, and that students would go to Paris
for the education they could not get at home.
In the article by Dr Southwood Smith which first called public attention
to these evils, he points out, in a very striking manner, the paramount
necessity of a supply of subjects. He reminds his readers of the wild
theories of former times when anatomical knowledge was not possessed,
and enforces on their attention the fact that this knowledge can only be
acquired, with any degree of perfection, by means of dissection. He
further reminds them that no operation can be performed without torture
to the living, and danger to life itself, by the hand of a surgeon
unpractised in dissection; and no clear judgment formed by the physician
on the diseases of the human frame--diseases generally seated in organs
hidden from the eye--without a study of the internal structure.
After shortly passing over the evils of the system then prevailing,
which have just been pointed out--evils which were then very generally
known--he suggests the remedy,--a very simple one. It was, to cease to
give the bodies of executed criminals for anatomical purposes, and thus
in a measure to take off the stigma on dissection; and then to
appropriate to that purpose the bodies of all those who die in hospitals
and workhouses _unclaimed by relatives_.
Nothing was done for some time, till in 1828, three years after this
paper was written, there came the horrible discovery that the difficulty
of obtaining subjects from the churchyards had become so great that two
men, Burke and Hare, had resorted to murder to supply the need--the
temptation having been the large price to be obtained for bodies.
When things had come to this climax, legislative attention was aroused.
At this time the article which had appeared in the 'Westminster Review'
was reprinted as a pamphlet, under the title of 'The Use of the Dead to
the Living.' In this form it went through several editions, a copy being
presented to members of both Houses of Parliament.
The measures recommended in it were mainly adopted by the Legislature,
and have proved completely successful.
There is something at first sight sad in a plan which lets anything that
is painful in the thought of such an appropriation of the bodies of the
dead fall exclusively on the poor. This did not fail to suggest itself
to my grandfather's mind. But it is to the survivors alone that such
pain comes, and these friendless ones would have none left to shrink
from this use of their remains. Such were to be chosen for the necessary
purpose, not because they were "poor," but because they were
"unclaimed." Neither was any pain arising from this arrangement to be
compared with that springing from the forcible seizure of bodies in the
old times. Out of _that_ arose, necessarily, scenes of horror revolting
to all sense of the respect due to the dead; while their quiet removal
from the hospital to the anatomical school, to be followed, after the
necessary dissection, by their burial, is widely different. It seemed,
moreover, that the interest of the poor specially demanded a widespread
anatomical knowledge in medical men, since they, more than all others,
suffered when the means of gaining it were limited. "Poverty, it is
true," my grandfather writes, "is a misfortune; poverty, it is true, has
terror and pain enough in itself. No legislature ought by any act to
increase its wretchedness; but the measure here proposed is pregnant
with good to the poor, and would tend, more than can be estimated, to
lessen the misery of their condition. For it would give knowledge to the
lowest practitioners of the medical art--that is, to persons who are at
present lamentably deficient, and into whose hands the great bulk of the
poor fall. And, after all, the true question is, whether the surgeon
shall be allowed to gain knowledge by operating on the bodies of the
dead, or driven to obtain it by practising on the bodies of the living.
If the dead bodies of the poor are not appropriated to this use, their
living bodies must be, and will be. The rich will always have it in
their power to select, for the performance of an operation, the surgeon
who has signalised himself by success; but that surgeon, if he has not
obtained the dexterity which ensures success by dissecting and operating
on the bodies of the dead, must have acquired it by making them on the
living bodies of the poor."
It was said at the time by objectors that the measure in question would
deter patients from entering the hospitals, and add terrors to
workhouses, but experience has proved that my grandfather was right: the
adoption of his plan has not been found to have the slightest effect of
the kind.
In considering the work of this period of my grandfather's life, I ought
not to omit to mention his lectures, which were full of the same
earnestness and originality that characterised all he did. He was
lecturer at the Webb Street School of Anatomy, where he gave a course on
"Forensic Medicine," which made much impression at the time. He gave
also courses of popular lectures on physiology at the London Institution
and elsewhere. To those at the London Institution ladies were
admitted--a permission unusual in those times.
One lecture, delivered on a very remarkable occasion, must be mentioned
here. My grandfather was the friend and physician of Jeremy Bentham, and
was called upon, after his death, to perform a duty which he had
solemnly undertaken. The venerable philosopher died in 1832 at the age
of eighty-five, and by will desired that his body should be used for the
purposes of dissection. He intrusted to Dr Southwood Smith, in
conjunction with two other friends, the task of seeing this disposition
properly fulfilled, trusting that they would not be deterred by
opposition or obloquy.
This disposition of his body was not a recent act. By a will, dated as
far back as 1769, it was left, for the same purpose, to his friend Dr
Fordyce. The reason at that time assigned for this is expressed by
Bentham in the following remarkable words:--
"This my will and special request I make, not out of affectation of
singularity, but to the intent and with the desire that mankind may reap
some small benefit by my decease, having hitherto had small
opportunities to contribute thereto while living."
By a memorandum affixed to this document it is clear that it had
undergone revision as lately as two months before his death, and that
this part of it, originally made when he was twenty-one, was again
deliberately and solemnly confirmed by him at eighty-five.
In thus appropriating his remains to the service of mankind, Bentham
carried out, to the last moment of his life, and even after his death,
his principle of "Utility."
The subject of dissection was agitating the public mind: the "Anatomy
Bill" was not yet passed, and the idea might well present itself to a
benevolent mind such as his, that to show a thorough absence of horror
or dislike to the idea of being dissected after death would be a means
of lessening the prejudice which existed against it.
Whatever may be thought of the "greatest happiness principle" of this
philosopher, it did not cause him to lead a selfish or epicurean life.
The long calm expanse of eighty-five years was filled with simple
pleasures, with hard work, and contained many sacrifices to the cause of
truth.
My grandfather bears his testimony to the wonderful energy and
self-devotion of Bentham during his life in these words:--
"Bentham's object was no less a one than to construct an
all-comprehensive system of morals and an all-comprehensive code of
laws. For the accomplishment of a work so prodigious he put forth an
energy commensurate to the end. The extent of mental labour required for
this undertaking, and actually brought to it, is truly extraordinary.
Every day for nearly half a century did he devote to it never less than
eight hours, often ten, and sometimes twelve."
And now, when this busy life was stilled, my grandfather was bound to
carry out as fully as possible Bentham's wish that in death too he might
be useful. He delivered the oration over the body, in the Webb Street
School of Anatomy, on the evening of the 9th of June 1832. One who was
there thus writes of it:--
"None who were present can ever forget that impressive scene. The room
is small and circular, with no windows, but a central skylight, and was
filled, with the exception of a class of medical students and some
eminent members of that profession, by friends, disciples, and admirers
of the deceased philosopher, comprising many men celebrated for literary
talent, scientific research, and political activity. The corpse was on
the table in the centre of the room, directly under the light, clothed
in a night-dress, with only the head and hands exposed. There was no
rigidity in the features, but an expression of placid dignity and
benevolence. This was at times rendered almost vital by the reflection
of the lightning playing over them; for a storm arose just as the
lecturer commenced, and the profound silence in which he was listened to
was broken, and only broken, by loud peals of thunder, which continued
to roll at intervals throughout the delivery of his most appropriate and
often affecting address. With the feelings which touch the heart in the
contemplation of departed greatness, and in the presence of death, there
mingled a sense of the power which that lifeless body seemed to be
exercising in the conquest of prejudice for the public good, thus
cooperating with the triumphs of the spirit by which it had been
animated. It was a worthy close of the personal career of the great
philosopher and philanthropist. Never did corpse of hero on the
battle-field, with his martial cloak around him, or funeral obsequies
chanted by stoled and mitred priests in Gothic aisles, excite such
emotions as the stern simplicity of that hour in which the principle of
utility triumphed over the imagination and the heart."
In the year 1834 my grandfather published his book entitled 'The
Philosophy of Health,'[12] the preparation of which had been a work of
great care, and had occupied much time for several years before. This
book, which was, perhaps, the first attempt to bring the truths of human
physiology within the comprehension of the general reader, achieved a
marked success. It was full of the clearness and force which
characterised all the writings of its author. The strides of modern
science have now, of course, left its physiological teaching far behind,
but at the time it did original educational work and added lustre to his
name.
His life in chambers must have been an arduous one--first at 36 New
Broad Street, afterwards at 38 Finsbury Square,--his days given up to
his ever-increasing practice, his mornings and evenings to writing: the
amount achieved was prodigious, and he allowed himself but little
relaxation.
I may mention that it was at this time that my grandfather first visited
at the house of old Mr Gillies, a city merchant of refined literary
tastes and the father of the two distinguished women, Mary and Margaret
Gillies (author and artist), who afterwards became the friends for life
of himself, his wife, and daughters, and in whose home he--and I with
him--had rooms in Kentish Town and afterwards at Highgate, though he
occupied for professional purposes the rooms in the city to which I have
before referred.
Footnote 11:
Herman Southwood, born 1820, died 1897; Christina and Spencer, died in
childhood.
Footnote 12:
Longmans, 1834.