Introductory lecture to a course of demonstrative anatomy : delivered December 11, 1830 / by Samuel George Morton.

  • Morton, Samuel George, 1799-1851.
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introductory lecture to a course of demonstrative anatomy : delivered December 11, 1830 / by Samuel George Morton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    In a hundred years, not one of this multitude will have re- mained upon the earth V Death abolishes the distinctions which custom has intro- duced into society : the dead body of the slave differs not from that of his master ; each displays, in an equal degree, the work of a superior intelligence, constantly inviting our research, but often eluding our scrutiny. To this ultimate stage of human organization, society has ever attached a kind of sacred feeling. Among the ancients, superstition placed an almost insuperable barrier in the path of the anatomist; and while thousands of lives were reck- lessly sacrificed to the purposes of ambition, the disciples of Hippocrates could scarcely procure one dead body to promote the healing art, and the cause of humanity. The slain lay in heaps on the field of battle, but superstitious usage forbade the approach of the anatomist. The ancient Egyptians embalmed their dead, and deposited them in the sepulchres of Thebes and Antinoe ; the Greeks and Romans consumed the inanimate body with fire, and pre- served the ashes in an urn.* The Jews considered it pollu- tion to touch a corpse except in preparing it for sepulture. The Saracens cherished similar feelings ; for Abdolaliph, their celebrated anatomist, led his pupils to the burying grounds of Cordova, and there taught them Osteology from the shattered fragments which the spade of the grave digger had thrown upon the surface. Even Aristotle, sustained as he was by the patronage of Alexander, confined his dissections almost exclusively to the inferior orders of animals ; and the Anatomy of Hippocrates, the father of medicine, has little value beyond the simple bounds of Osteology. Hippocratest is believed to have been the first writer on Anatomy; and it is an interesting fact, • The Greeks, on one or two occasions, condemned their victorious gen- erals to death, because they left their countrymen unburied on the scene of conflict. What punishment then—asks a celebrated author—what punish- ment would they have inflicted on the man who had dared to violate their tombs! Even the Roman physicians, says Galen, performed the voyage to Alex- andria to see a skeleton. - •(•400 years before the Christian xra.