The Mena weekly star., 1897-12-08
BUY BODIES OF LIVING MEN.
Surgeons Who Want Good Subjects for
 Dissection Pay Cash for Them.

Surgeons Who Want Good Subjects for
 Dissection Pay Cash for Them.
 For reasons which can hardly be ap- precated, doctors and the heads of med ical institutions do not care to go into particulars regarding the purchase of living bodies. and yet, as n matter of fact, it is customary to pay cash in re- turn for bill of sale on the human body, to be delivered to the doctor or to the medical institution after the death of the seller.
 Any persons who are compelled by fate 10 go through life with malfor- mation of body or limb may, if they choose, realize on their misfortune, and there are on record wills of persons de- ceased who have left their bodies to various institutions for dissection.
 There are many cases of such ante- mortem sales, one of the most notable being that of a man known as "John," who has sold his head and trunk to the surgeons connected with well-lnown New York hospital. John, who so far as records go, has no other name, has peculiar growth on the side of his head which, while not a particularly pleasing sight, from a medical standpoint is most interesting.
 The man came to the hospital as q charity patient a number of years ago, and it is said that an arrangement was made between John and the doctors whereby he was to have q home in the hospital as long as he lived, provided that he was willing that after death his body should go to the surgeons table.
 Another case was that of Allen Mar tin and his young wife. For some req son known only to themselves they wished to sell their bodies to the Central Medical college of St Joseph, Mo-, but the offer was refused for the reason that both man and wife were in good health and perfectly formed, and there was every prospect of their outliving the doctors to whom they wished to make the sale.
 !, A medical college in this city has among its records and papers bill of sale for woman's head. The woman is alive to-day and should her name be mentioned 1t would be recognized by Hundreds of persons. She is gifted with a rnarvelousiy tenacious memory, and the doctors are curious to know just what peculiarity her. brain will show. This cannot be learned during her life, but she, being willing to advance the cause of science, has sold her head to the institution for the nominal sum of $20. In her will she has left instruc- tions that her body shall be decapitated, and, while the trunk and limbs shall be buried iii the ordinary way, the head and brain shall go to the surgeons for dissection.
 In all the German hospitals every pa- tient who enters does so with the knowl edge that if he or she dies in the insti- tuition the body is by law destined for the dissecting table. Custom, which familiarizes all things, has overcome all sense of repugnance in the matter, and the charity patient gives no second thought to the final disposition of the body.
 In French hospitals the same custom prevails, andany peculiar malformation of the body in a deceased patient is at once subjected to the surgeons knife. Attempts have been made to pass sim liar law in this country and in England, but the public sentiment has thus far overruled the demands of the anatom- ists, and with few exceptions medical colleges are obliged to look elsewhere for the dissecting table. N. Y. Re corder.