Body-snatching — Key Ideas to Explore

BALDWIN, CRADOCK, AND JOY,

T. C. HANSARD, Pater-noster-row Press.

The following pages are reprinted, with some modification, from the third Number of the Westminster Review. They treat of a subject on which it is of great importance that the public should be well informed, and it is in order to facilitate the circulation of the knowledge which they communicate respecting it, that the proprietors of the above-mentioned work have liberally consented to the re-publication of this article in the form of a pamphlet.

Every one desires to live as long as he can. Every one values health “above all gold and treasure.” Every one knows that, as far as his own individual good is concerned, protracted life and a frame of body sound and strong, free from the thousand pains which flesh is heir to, are unspeakably more important than all other objects, because life and health must be secured before any possible result of any possible circumstance can be of consequence to him. In the improvement of the art which has for its object the preservation of health and life, every individual is, therefore, deeply interested. An enlightened physician and a skilful surgeon, are in the daily habit of administering to their fellow men more real and unquestionable good, than is communicated, or communicable by any other class of human beings to another. Ignorant physicians and surgeons are the most deadly enemies of the community: the plague itself is not so destructive: its ravages are at distant intervals, and are accompanied with open and alarming notice of its purpose and power; theirs are constant, silent, secret; and it is while they are looked up to as saviours, with the confidence of hope, that they give speed to the progress of disease and certainty to the stroke of death.

It is deeply to be lamented that the community, in general, are so entirely ignorant of all that relates to the art and the science of medicine. An explanation of the functions of the animal economy; of their most common and important deviations from a healthy state; of the remedies best adapted to restore them to a sound condition, and of the mode in which they operate, as far as that is known, ought to form a part of every course of liberal education. The profound ignorance of the people on all these subjects is attended with many disadvantages to themselves, and operates unfavourably on the medical character. In consequence of this want of information, persons neither know what are the attainments of the man in whose hands they place their life, nor what they ought to be; they can neither form an opinion of the course of education which it is incumbent upon him to follow, nor judge of the success with which he has availed himself of the means of knowledge which have been afforded him. There is one branch of medical education in particular, the foundation, in fact, on which the whole superstructure must be raised, the necessity of which is not commonly understood, but which requires only to be stated to be perceived. Perhaps it is impossible to name any one subject which it is of more importance that the community should understand. It is one in which every man’s life is deeply implicated: it is one on which every man’s ignorance or information will have some influence. We shall therefore, show the kind of knowledge which it is indispensable that the physician and the surgeon should possess: we shall illustrate, by a reference to particular cases, the reason why knowledge of this kind cannot be dispensed with: and we shall explain, by a statement of facts, the nature and extent of the obstacles which at present oppose the acquisition of this knowledge. We repeat, there is no subject in which every reader can be so immediately and deeply interested, and we trust that he will give us his calm and unprejudiced attention.

The basis of all medical and surgical knowledge is anatomy. Not a single step can be made either in medicine or surgery, considered either as an art or a science, without it. This should seem self-evident, and to need neither proof nor illustration: nevertheless as it is useful occasionally to contemplate the evidence of important truth, we shall show why it is that there can be no rational medicine, and no safe surgery, without a thorough knowledge of anatomy.

Disease, which it is the object of these arts to prevent and to cure, is denoted by disordered function: disordered function cannot be understood without a knowledge of healthy function; healthy function cannot be understood without a knowledge of structure; structure cannot be understood unless it be examined.