The National Register.
London, England, 1816-06-02 00:00:00

" 13 t

VIOL:47'ION OF TIIE, D.E.41)
" THE. TROPIF.II STUDY OT MANKIND IS HAN."
Mr. Elution—lVs your varied and useful paper of Sunday last,
I read the letter of your correspondent. ,f. W.P., on what he
sails a practice which " brutalizes the human character ;" and
as he pi ofesses to he only seeking for information, thongh cer-
tainly in latiguaea, somew hat onset mly, 1 will venture an at-
tempt at setting him right. I hope he is open to cotivictio.i;
however, we will try.
1 will just cursorily run over his argnineris, and make such
passing observations as to me appear to apply; reserving to
nivaelf the privilege of entering more rutty into particulars,
should J. tt . P. express hints( It unsatisfied by this eonsitinni-
s:
I will first say this much for him and bat argument, that I no-
ser enter a cathedral, or house apprupriutedao the dead, with-
out removing fay list with the most profound and reverential
awe ; and that I never pass unordinary burying-ground withoUt
feeling a mute inexpressible veneration lbs. the mouldering in.
habitants of the silent torah.
. His setter is now lying before me ; but, before I enter with
him into detail, stiffer me to generalize a little. He and all the
world must grant me this, that Anatomy is a science secondary
only to the iTivine one of astronomy, the sublime study of those
spheres which revoke in beautiful order, and hannentons regu-
larity round the immediate throne of God ; that it is a science
which clearly thews man to himself; which tells him lie is not
self-created, nor the congregating of loose atoms, nor the con-
nection of the most fortoilons circumstances; hut the ititmerli.
ate handy work of his dis ine maker: that Anatomy :thews us
our own institheiency, and (lint the presiding finger of God is
as manifest in the most delicate portion of a nerve, in the times
than delicate itiosculation of ,111 artery with its according vein,
In the finely measured systole and dystole of the heart, in the
attended and tastefully painted surface of the lungs, in the
exquisite!) sensitive feeling of the brain, or in that finely finished
optical unto umeut the eye, as in the perfect Alla Godlike whole ;
and be us the beautiful ,ymutcity,thccomplicated yet
correct mechaiti tin of our own frame, must neeessaiity lead ns
up to the contemplation of that beneficent Being who is himself
all perfection, and whose every uct and production calls upon
us to admire and ssorship ; and, as genuine science ever was,
end will be, united ill Ills! i'lolest bonds of union with trite re-
ligion, Anatomy, being one of a superior order, ran never be
studied without t humanizing our actions, refining our sentiments,
end raising our affections to heaven.
I have discovered, on my first reading, that J. W. I'. is very
fond °lntuiting to the 41161111 A fur every thing. fu order, then,
0 narrow the argument as much as possible, and shut him
out for ever from 11 Son FCC which can Acid him nothing
but confitsitio, I will trouble him with ii brief history of mist°.
aly. I need not go farther Lack than to Hippourates, the father
ot medicine, who tlourislied about .190 years before Christ; who,
In spite of climate, prejudice, and superstition, persevered in the
study till lie became an ornament to society and the profession,
though far from a proficient.
ras followed,.and might have the sane desire to en-
lighten the world, but certainly not the s.:nie ability ; stud lie
gather added to, than removed errors trout the infant zeience.
At this time, Anatomy, from the paucity of dissections, made !
Ant slow advancements, and was confined to the two schools of
Athens and Alexandria. In the firmer, the names of Socrates,
Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, and 'Flienpluastis, are still highly
respected ; but after their time, the study of m:oral knowledge
at Athens stink for ever. While, however, it sunk at Athens,
It shone at Alexandria with increased splendour; and Erisistra.
gas and Herophilus were highly distinguished for anatomical
knowledge; as by the enlightened policy and liberal patronage
of the Ptolotnies, they enjoyed ample opportunities of dissect.
ing dead bodies (the first at this school); and the consequent
Int orovements which anatomy received were great. After them
Caine Asclepiades, Ephesiats, and Celsius, the most classic writer
that ever appeared on toe art of medicine. Next came Galen,
who was physician to roar Emperors. From the time of Galen
to the fifteenth century, anatomy was rather on the decline.
'towards the close of the twelfth century. however, A bdollaliph
taught it among the Aitibians, and by collecting bones from e
borying-grounds had °ppm !unities of discovering many of Ga-
len's errors in osteology. In the early part of the sixteenth
century, the great Vesalins, the restorer of anatomy, who ven-
tured to teach dissection systematically, and who, by his won-
derful perseverance, and th assistance of his pupil Fallopius,
trolled in such a title of light upon the science, and of benefit to
mankind, as to gain them Minim tality, and the thanks of all
good men. From this time it became a profession honoured
wild respected ; and the seventeenth century witnessed tilts dis.
tovery of the most important function of animated bodies, the
circulation of the blood, by Harvey; since Minnie time the men
el eminence that have shone in the proles.ion, and the ins alum-
ble discoveries they have made, are by far to tinnwrous for me
to name, neither do they need it, their works :pm ak fur
them.

Having said thus much to chew that from the earliest, and
even tin ouch the very d.trkest ages of mankind, Anatomy has
been eagerly sought and steilied by Saees, Statesmen, and
Philosophers; and that it has been tolerated, encouraged,
and commendedjust in proportion tro the dissipation of igno-
. lance, and the diffusion of useful knowledge, and /A like
that groundless and fanciful theory Astrology, which has ever
flourished in the exact ratio of the density •f that dark and
Impenetrable night of ignorance which generated it; and also
to prevent J. W. P. from running about float century to cen-
tury, picking up all the obscure anecdotes that can be tither
collected or invented, I will now draw my chair a little closer,
and enter freely into conversation. As to his first embarrass-
anent, in accounting for why the practice has not bet n ".repro.
bated, or indeed noticed, by the pious and humans. writers of
the present day,' I answer, it is fur this good reason, that not
from inattelition (as he supposes),, but that after viewing the
prartive with an extended compassionate eve, they have all
been convinced that it is a practice much to he deplored on
awn:l9i of the feelings of the survivors, yet from its imperious
and tbspensible necessity to lie tolerated: and, indeed, who,
but those of sicklied sensibility and narrowed views Minns-
any, could wish to stop the diffusion of this most useful and
eoutfort-yielding science, or wonder that men with better
hearts and sounder understandings should hove seen it as it
rcilly is, the sole basis of surgery; and that as they have
valued their own health, lilies, or limbs, or those of their sof-
tering fellow-creatures, or as they admire, and wish to prontol
gate iveiy kind of nue science and philosophy, they have,
imtead of Ile, Trebling a system, without which Mall lutist
I again tall into barbarism, have not only refrained front cont.
• atsenting on it, bat have themselves actually entered into the
Judy with all thu it Souls,

"Serene philosophy,
Efr.isive f‘nurce of evidence and truth!
Without thee, vault were unenlightent d loan ?
teen ge, 1.o:onion t;troogh the ‘• 0(1114 zind wilds,
Or clad, rio‘ old of every fincr art
lice of life."

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