Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-11-02
QUICK AND THE DEAD
Undertakers Played a Mean Trick on
Them, Doctors Say, In Getting
Pay for Burylng Paupers
~ DIssectors Need
BY GEORGE NOx MCCAIN

Dy oLVIsoE NON WCOfhhN
THIS is a chapter on the Quick and the
Incidentally it illustrates the wide di-
versity of matters that the coming Legis
lature will have to deal with. After all
Legislature Is sort of junk shop into which
all sorts of subjects are thrown for legal
adjustment and disposition by statute.
From off the battlefelds of France in the
last two years there has come humaniz-
ing and benevolent breath that might not
have been felt for years had it not been,
oddly enough, for the world war.
The need, and the work, of rehablitating
the victims Of the titanic struggle drew at
tention to the victims Of our industrial army
that every year are counted by the thousands
in the accident lists Of great industries.
We are building up and restoring the shot
torn and crippled Of the Argonne and the
Meuse, and this suggested the same work for
the injured and crippled In our industrial
army at home. ~
As a result the last Legislature appro-
priated 500, 900 for the two years for the
restoration to usefulness of persons in in
dustrial accidents, who few years ago
would have been relegated to the human
scrap pile.
Congress recently passed law appro-
priating $50, 900 for the same purpose; for
the vocational training of injured working
people. But there's string to it,
propyiates like amount.
The federal act further stipulatcs that
the entire fund shall be administered under
federal supervision.
There is going to be fight in the Legis;
lature on this subject. Our lawmakers will
undoubtedly object to the plan of the state
adopting the federal bill and turning over
TT IS a pretty well-known fact, though
i not usually discussed outside the medical
profession, that bodies of unclaimed pauper
dead In this state are used for dissecting
purposes in the medical colleges.
Prior to last year the law provided that
these bodies should 60 to the State Ana
tomical Board which saw to their distribu-
ton as described But this gruesome ar
rangement was knocked in the head by the
Legislature Of 1919.
As a result there is a dearth Of cadavers
in every medical college in the state. The
shortage has become so acute that 1t is i'm
possible to supply the demand. Some insti-
tutions. it is understood, have been COM
PEELED practically to abandon the gentle art
of dissection in their medical departments.
What with the anti vvisectionists keeping
an eagle eye on anatomists, and legitimate
subjects for the dissecting knife nowhere in
sight physicians and surgeons in embryo
are most emphatically 'up against it.
STRANGE to say the undertakers are
- blamed.
A combination of the undertakers Of the
state had passed an act in 1919 appropriat-
ing $50 for the burial of each pauper. 1t
was q mighty clever thing, and quite profit
able as a side line for a profession which
dates back to the Pbaraohs and then some.
There is good reason to believe that the
gentlemen who are Of the faculty of our
leading medical colleges regard it as q low
tric of bo tolf
Particularly as the undertaken, in the
final drama of human life, follows the ply
sican in sequence of events.
The natural solution would be that the
State Anatomical Board pay the undertakers
the $50 head or body, and let 1t go at
that.
This would be not only costly but an
unheard of proceeding. But remedial meas
ures arc under way and there are prospects
Of stiff fight at the coming session at
DR.. Addinell Hewson, OF this city. is
secretary of the State Anatomical Board
He is, / am informed, preparing a bill for
presentation that will nail the lid on the
game.
1t will repeal the present statute and re-
store the old order of things, which COM
pels the state to make disposition of the
unclaimed pauper dead by turning them
over to the medical schools of the common
wealth.
THE interests Of hotel men in prespro
l. hibition days was closely identified with
spectacular politics.
BY spectacular politics is meant the hip
hip -hurray of state or national campaigns
or conventions-the parades, the red fire
| boys and all the hilarious turmoil to the
music of q band.
Unless conditions change coming genera
| tiOns of voters will know nothing Of the
excitement exuberance and efferyescencc
hot kppw at IN 70
| conventions with torchlight paradcs under
the splutter of Roman candles and ''whoosh"
| of rockets.
1t is in this connection that hotel men
! in every county seat, and In Harrisburg
| particularly. are hit the hardest.
A big political meeting in a city or county
| seat meant hundreds and sometimes thou =
sands Of dollars to hotel proprietors. Bars
were filled to overfowing and cot beds in
| corridors were at a premium.
But the scepter has departed from Israel.
! The bars are empty and cot beds are gather
| ing dust in top floor storerooms.
And it is all because the political system
has changed. The whang banging style of
| conducting a campaign has departed to
where the woodbne twineth.
JGTELLINGTON JONES, of Harrisburg,
| w who remembers every national cam =
paign back to that of Hayes and Wheeler.
says that Ohio Is cinch for Harding and
| COOnuBc.
Mr.. Jones is best known as the man who
never grows old. He is as robust and opti
| mistic as he was when Hartranft ran for
| Governor.
A few weeks ago he was up in Altoona
at the annual athletic carnival held by the
Pennsylvania Railroad men who had gath E
cred there from every division of the great
system east and west. As he described It,
in Walter Scott's immortal lines,
| 'Twere worth ten years of peaceful life,
| One glance ut their array"
| But the marshaled Drawn and snew
| skill and prowess of the sinewy athletes was
| not what caught "Welly" Jones' eye. II
was a special trainload of contestants and
rooters from Ohio who came to cheer and
cop off whatever laurels might be hung ur
| in their particular line.
And every man wore Harding badge the
size Of a bread and butter plate.
"There were hundreds of them," said
Mr. Jones, "and believe me, they walked
off with the honors. They had a special