THE HUNTERIAN ORATION. 15
tion of infamy to the sentence,* and in an early age, to such an extent, it would appear, has this principle been carried, that the criminal has been consigned to the custody and use of the anatomist, even without the preliminary measure of execution. Of this, we are informed by Fallopius incidentally, when discussing the operation of poisons, and without comment on the extraordinary nature of the transaction. “ Fever,” he observes, “hath a mighty power of resisting a cold poison, a fact of which we had experience at Pisa, in the case of a man destined for dissection. The Prince had ordered that we should have a man delivered to us to be killed in our own way, (quem nostro modo interficimus), and anatomized. To this man, we gave two drams of opium, but he labouring under a quartan ague, and the fit just coming on, the opium was hindered of its effect. He then boastfully desired that we should give him as much more of the medicine, and in the event of its not proving fatal, prayed that we would intercede for him with the Prince. We gave him two drams more; but it was in the interval between the fits, and he died.” +
- “The only boons yet offered to the science of physiology are the
grants of the bodies of murderers and felons to the Colleges of Surgery and Medicine, originating rather in the notion of exemplary punishment than in that of forwarding this most useful study.” —Laws
relating to the Medical Profession. By J. W. Willcock, Esquire, 1830, Chap. X.
+ Fallopii Opera quee adhuc extant omnia, fol. Francof. 1584,— Tractatus de tumoribus preter naturam. Cap. xiv. page 712. �
