The national leader., 1889-05-04
DIssECTED BY GIRL STUDENTS.
Young Women Who Ha idle the Seal
pei ana Forceps Withi.ut Squeam-
ishness.


corpse 1t was that of woman past
middle age. Aroul | il stood seven
women, whose years .ed from Is to
40. They wore long ap ons that came
from their necks to the.r heels, their
bonnets were off, and they were eagerly
working over the remains with their
heads bent close and thr nimble fin
gers moving back and fro as if they
were picking out nugget Of gold.
One of the ladies, short and plump,
with her hair done up PDmpadour and
plain gold ring on her left hand and
seal amethyst on her rirAt little finger,
was at the head of the table, and as she
stood over the head of the corpse, whose
| ghastly features almost touched her
lips, the peered as if oking into the
very intricacies of the mead and face.
In their left hands the women all had
pincers of forceps, and with these they
deftly grabbed the fitt b, and with a
scalpel in the right han they slit little
cuts off from the skin. Then muscles
were grappled by the forceps that they
held, and, lifting them mp, all the ma
terial was cut from then until the mus
cles stood out like loTg string.
The women were dlssecting. The
scene was in the garror of the Female
Medical College, on George St, Gin. 0.
A small cannon stove ar The foot of the
body warmed up the room, and when
the blaze went down Dits of material
thrown in flashed up with a sizzle and
glow.
One of the young ladies had just
/ come from some town in Kentucky.
| hn hn11 - q RI
and stood apart and off from the stiff as
though there was something corruptlng
about it. She had long nose and
bright black eyes, anG snapped out,
| "Oh, mercy, shall ne"er get used to
this nasty work"
"Oh, yes, you will," said the amiable
and scholarly demonstrator. "Don't be
afraid; get right up 10 the material
! There, do you know W nat that muscle
| is?"
"No, do not
"It's the Sartorius. It enables the
tailor to sit cross-legeed," and, grab
bing the muscle that rms from the hip
dow the inside of the thigh to the knee
cap, he pulled it and ur came the foot
and ankle of the corpse close by the
Kentucky girls head. This lady was
working ON a corpse all by herself.
About all there was left that had not
been chopped up or hacked to pieces
was the left knee, ankle, and foot. This
looked white, but shrivelled.
| The demonstrator, DIR. Lewis, wore
an apron like the ladies and held the
scalpel and forceps like an expert He
had long Latin name for every muscle
and sinew, every artery and nerve, and
as he selected them out of the different
parts of the body and asked "What is
this?" "What is its function?" it soon
became evident that dissection was no
child's play, and that one of the first
requisites was memory.
A noticeable feature of the dissecting
room was that the women all appeared
in earnest. There were no jokes, and
each seemed bent on learning, no mat
ter how disagreeable the work Sew
eral of them had been nurses and were
used to the sick, the dead, and the dy-
ing, and some of them had the appear
ance of women who would scream at
mouse or go into Mysteries at ghost.
The demonstration at last took posi-
tion at the head of the body, and, call
ing the attention of all, said: "And
this is for all of you," proceeded to
make couple of incisions in the throat,
and pointed out the difference between
laryngotomy and tracheotomy. The
one was performed above Adams apple,
the other below. He soon found the
artery that had to be tied, but some
thing took to bleeding, and hence the
danger; then picked out each of the
muscles and hung aw-breaking Latin
name on to each that made the young
ladies say, "Oh, DEAR" and one of them
got her anatomy, and, shutting her
eyes, repeated it over and over again so
as to tack fast on the tablets of her
memory. The demonstrator minutely
described the operation on the EN-
peror Frederick S throat, ard explained
what Sir Moreu Mackenzie did. at
which the medical world stood aghast.
The whiteness of the bodies was some
thing that astounded the reporter.
Neither of them had the drie l-up mum
mified appearance SO common to mater
ial that is ordinarily found n the dis
secting room. The feature, of each
were preserved SO that Identification
could have been a matter OF no diff
Guilty, though the whiteness las dead
sort of paleness devoid of I'll ut of the
living, beneath the flesh Of which
courses the warm arterial blot d, giving
the flush of health and glow o vitality
One of the lady students cam, in late,
and she neither took off her ha nor put
on an apron, but, removing her gloves,
took up pair of forceps ant scalpel
and proceeded at once to scraping the
flesh off one of the legs without
any hemming or having. Perhaps she
had just come from late break kfast. At