AND ANATOMICAL SCHOOLS. Notwithstanding the reputation to which a few British anatomists have attained within the last hundred years, before the passing of the Anatomy Acts of 1831 and 1832 the study of practical anatomy in Great Britain was all but proscribed by statute. Early, it is true, in the sixteenth century, by way of encouraging anatomical studies, it was ordained that "the bodies of four murderers should be delivered after execution to the corporation of barber-surgeons of London, for the purposes of dissection;" and at that time we were not much behind the rest of Europe in anatomical knowledge; but our legislation regarding the supply of bodies for the dissecting-room remained stationary, while the rest of the world was advancing, as became apparent by the fact, that until the middle of the last century our students were forced to seek anatomical knowledge in the various schools of Italy or of Holland. Yet our courts of law were in the habit of punishing medical men for professional ignorance, and our public boards of requiring anatomical skill in those who appeared before them for examination, while the laws prohibited the means of obtaining it at home; and it was even penal for any one to be in possession of a human body for anatomical purposes, except it were that of an executed murderer.

In defiance, however, of such strange discouragements, anatomy, especially in London and Edinburgh, made much progress, by the public winking at notorious transgressions of the law; but this anomalous state of things produced a class of offenders termed body-snatchers, whose revolting and, in some instances, atrociously criminal modes of supplying the dissecting-room were exposed in the parliamentary inquiry that preceded the Act now noticed.

By previous Acts of Parliament the criminal courts had been empowered to annex to the capital sentence on a murderer, that his body should be publicly dissected. But it was justly considered that thus the idea of great crime was connected with dissection, and the prejudices of all classes against anatomy greatly increased. Accordingly, in the second year of William IV., a parliamentary committee investigated the subject, and in the following year an act was passed that abolishes dissection as a part of any criminal sentence, legalizes schools of anatomy, and permits the possession of human bodies for the purpose of dissection, under judicious regulations, which are sufficient to prevent the revolting practices of the body-snatcher, and the still more atrocious crimes for which Bishop in London and Burke at Edinburgh were executed. Under this act the supply of bodies in our anatomical schools has been sufficient, without violating the sepulchres of the dead, or outraging the feelings of the living. The average supply of bodies to the London schools is estimated at 600 annually.—See Report of House of Commons, of 22d April 1829; and Anatomy Bills of 5th May 1829, of 17th December 1831, and of 8th May 1832.