The Opelousas courier., 1890-04-19
IN THE D[SSECTING Room.
DELvING FOR KNOWLEDGE AMONG
BONES AND TISSUES.
The Students ress-Prices Paid For
Subjects - Dangerous Work.
Terrible Death.

five students at each table. The dissect-
ing table is merely a slab of black slate
seven feet long, supported on iron frames.
The 'subject" reposes upon the table
and the students, with knives of razor
like sharpness, work their will upon it.
For the purpose of study each subject
is divided into five parasitic head, the
two arms and the two legs. The subject
is not cut up into five parts, however,
but remains intact until it has served its
purpose. Each student is required to
pay 81 for his part, and he works on that
exclusively for as long asa month.
The students dress in the dlssecting
room resembles that of the butcher of
ordinary life; over his street dress ne
slips a loose linen s'duster," and thus
equipped he goes to work.
while working the medical student is
a cheerful, even a hilarious body. He
sings or whistles, aud smokes, cracks
Jokes and behaves himself generally in
an apparently frivolous manner The
business which engages his attention in
the dissecting room has to his profess
sional nerves not the remotest suggestion
of the horrible or the grotesque. 1t is
the recognized legitimate mode OF study
nothing else.
1t is an open secret at the College of
Physicians and Surgeons that all cada-
vers that have passed through the dis
secting room are burned to ashes in a
crematory situated somewhere within the
college buildings, but none of the stu
dents have ever seen the crematory or
have even the remotest idea where it is
located.
The source whence subjects for the
dissecting room are procured is a tanta-
lizing mystery to the students. The
Morgue is the most likely place, but not
even the Morgue of this big town can
supply all that are needed. Grave rob-
berry is an extinct form of crime, but
pauper deathbeds are numberless, and no
one knows or cares what becomes of
friendless paupers after death. Medical
science cannot perform its functions
without cadavers, and the law of supply
and demand applies in the "stif" market
as in every other.
The price paid for subjects by medical
colleges in New York varies according to
whether the supply is plentiful or slack.
Ordinarily it is said to be SIS for each
cadaver, just the price which working
students pay for it in addition to their
ordinary college dues. It is said that
cadavers bought at the Morgue are the
perquisite of the keeper, who sells them
to the colleges. 1t is an erroneous Iva
| that cadavers are rushed to the dissecting
room Immediately after death has given
| them that name. No cadaver that is not
| at least six months old is ever sent to the
dissecting room of the New York College
of Physicians and Surgeons. For in
stance, all cadavers intended for that
place are kept in refrigerators for fully
six months before they are suffered to
come under the knives of the students.
By that time they are dried out COM
pletely and there is NJ longer the small
est danger of c~ontagion from the processes
of decay. The University of the City OF
New York pickles all cadavers intended
for the dissecting room of its medical
classes.
Work in the dissecting room is not
| without its dangers-even horrors, for
there is the ever present possibility that
the knife may slip and cut the hand OF
the operator. Death in such an event
would be certain within twenty-four
hours afterward, and horrible beyond the
imagination to picture. In scientific
phrase, pyemia would result from thu
poison which would enter the veins Of
the living from those of the dead. b.
the exercise of constant vigilance acci
dents of the nature here referred to are
exceedingly rare. None has yet occurred
at the College of Physicians and Sur
geons. But it will be long before thu
medical world viii forget the case Of
DR.. Bird, of Jersey City.
DR.. Bird wa a young and brilliant
surgeon. One night while he was a
work on an autopsy he cut himself b.
purest accident with the operating knife
Blood poisoning set in, and within
twenty-four hours DR.. Bird was himsel
Q corpse, the victim of the most revolt
ing death that can overtake q human
being.
The faculty believed thoroughly il
vivisection as q means to a useful end
Once during every college year DIR. Cur
tbs, Professor of Physiology, performs il
the public clinic room of the college, al
operation which is to be witnessed at n,
other medical school in the world.
living OK, the bigger the better, j
brought into the room. The animal
propped up with his huge chest f%rontinI
the spectators. Then he is put unde
the influence of ether and Professor Cur
tbs opens his chest, cutting away tn
skin and laying bare the heart. Below
of great capacity fan the animal and en-
able it to breathe. The object is to dis
play the living, beating heart in the yer
act of performing its normal functions
The lesson is the most valuable in til
whole course of the students t~rainin
and the operation one of the most diff
cult in surgery. At the conclusion q
his lecture Professor Curtis sews up thos
parts of the ox's physical organism whic
he has previously cut away, the anim'
is permitted to come out of the coma In
duced by the etherization, and it is the
led away and its wounds are suffered
heal, In the dozen times that Professe
Curtis has performed the operation II
OK has recovered and lived out its allotte
span of life without permanent i'll effect
-New York Press.