An historical sketch of medicine and surgery, from their origin to the present time; and of the principal authors, discoveries, improvements, imperfections and errors / by W. Black.

Date:: 1782

Credit: An historical sketch of medicine and surgery, from their origin to the present time; and of the principal authors, discoveries, improvements, imperfections and errors / by W. Black. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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$L 9S ] Whether Galen ever regularly di{Te(^ed hii- man bodies, is doubtful. At Rome, a delicacy and fuperftition was entertained by the people, in refped; to violating the bodies of the dead, and they approached a corpfe >Vith horror: numbers were burnt after death. Phyficians by accident, ; fays Galen, may procure the body of a robber killed in the highway, of enemies flain in the field \ of battle, of malefadlors condemned to the wild beafts, or of young infants expofed in the ftreets, a cuftom, hiftorians report, not unfrcquent amongfi: i the indigent Romans, when taxes became infiip- ^ portable : fuch wretched objects alone were per- f mitted to be difleded. To popular abhorrence were added, fevere penalties and punifhments upon '' any one who Ihould violate the corpfe of the dead. j This law was enaded in confequence of the do- ; meftic murders, and other horrid cruelties com- j mitted by the furious fadions of Marius and Scylla. Galen advifes, firft to pradife the dififec- ’ tion of apes or monkies ; and that if in the wars with the Germans, or by any other accident, phy- ficians fhould find human fubjeds for difledion,they | will be more expert and ready to diftinguifh the dif- ' ferent parts in man. He often defcribes parts of the ape or monkey, fuppofing them to be anala- gOLis to thofe in man. He tells us that he had difisded many fpecies of the brute creation, and amongft them, monkies and apes ; animals, we muft allow, that in external make, and ftill muclji more in their internal ftrudurc, are rude imi-$