Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1903-03-16
SENATOR MILLER's CORPSE BILL
is coMBATTED.
MILWAUKEEANS DIRECTING
Fear State Institution Will Get a
corner-Long Declares the Meas
ure an Attempt by the Professors
to Form Closed Corporation Of
Dead Men.
Madison, March u

Madison, March II.
The university cadaver bill. intro
duced by Senator Miller, to allow the
university authorities to take the
bodies of persons who may have to be
buried at public expense if the rela-
tives do not interfere, was the subject
of a hearing before the senate COM
mittee on public health and sanitation
yesterday afternoon. IL developed
strong opposition from the faculties
of the Milwaukee medical colleges,
who seemed to fear that the univer-
sity would effect a corner i'm public
cadavers. This fear was explained
away by President Birge, who ex
pressed the desire to make such
amendments to the bill as would as
sure the Milwaukee institutions the
protection they desired.
DR.. w. S. Miller, professor of vertc-
brate anatomy at the university, aud
presumably the one who will be the
professor of anatomical science and
who will have the corpses offered To
him under the terms of the proposed
law, explained the purpose of the
measure. Among other things he
said that il was desirable to provide
the medical colleges and the pre-
medical departments of the university
with cadavers i'm some practicable
and satisfactory way so as to remove
,-e temptation of professors to traffic
i'm bodies. Such a traffic he said had
led in some cases to grave robbing.
body snatching' and resurrection,
as the nefarious crimes committed in
Indianapolis have been named.
A. II. Long, appearing against the
bill, made a startling attack on the
measure and incidentally severely
criticised the management of the uni
versity saying:
Il think it is an injustice and a
shame that the people of the state OF
Wisconsin should be taxed to support
costly de )artnent of the university
i'm order that that department may be
merely a feeder for other education
al institutions. The anatomical de.
partment of the university, which
would be benefited by the expense of
this proposed law, does not turn our
or propose to turn out physicians, but
merely give them a smattering sc
that they can go with little or no
credit into other institutions removed
from this state. The theory of this
law is absolutely pernicious. tt pro-
poses to give the professor OF ana
tomical science the first say regarding
the disposition of all bodies of per
sons who are an expense to the state
in their unfortunate last sickness ana
death The immediate relatives are
the only ones that this precedence OF
the professor does not exclude.
had supposed that the money spent
by the state and the counties IN as
sisting and the counties i'm assisting
and burying unfortunates was charity
and it ought not to be spent in order
to furnish the professor of anatomy
at the university with bodies to cut
up. You professors appear to want to
form a close corporation of dead
men. The university In advocating
this bill is certainly, to say the least,
putting itself in an undignifled posi-.
ton"
Acting President Birge replied that
the university was in the position of
the state and the only thing asked
was to give the state institution the
priority in regard to the bodies.