I was reading a biography of the famous surgeon John Hunter, who was often credited with bringing surgery out of the dark ages and making a scientific discipline of it in the latter half of the 18th century- marking the transition between the old days of medicine learned from classical texts and “barber-surgeons” and the modern notion of scientific medicine.
A facinating character, he was very much a Dr-Jekel-and-Mr.-Hyde kind of guy - the very prototype of the scientist as mad genius. Reading the biography, you get the impression that his undoubted contributions to medical science were balanced by a darker side - his unscrupulous methods of forming his famous “collections” of human “preparations” and oddities (still in existence as the Huntlerian Museum) to which he devoted his life.
Other ethically dubious actions include his involvement in gruesome experiments and transplantations - for example, paying poor people to use their teeth.
Just out of curiousity, I did some poking about on the 'net, and discovered that there is a new theory that John helped his surgeon brother in a still more gruesome and horrible manner - murdering pregnant women to complete one of the formost medical texts of the age, a manual of the anatomy of the gravid uterus.
I just finished reading a bio of him today, interestingly – a chapter in John Monahan’s book They Called Me Mad.
Monahan cites biographer Wendy Moore (The Knife Man, 2005) as the authority for saying that Hunter’s actual house was, in fact, the inspiration for Jekyll’s house in Stevenson’s story. (Jekyll purchased the house from “the heirs of a distinguished surgeon”, and the descriptions of the house match that of Hunter’s, right down to the disreutable-looking side entrance).
Nothing about direct involvement with murder, but Hunter apparently did deal directly with “resurrectionists” to obtain corpses for dissection, something his more “respectable” brother William couldn’t or wouldn’t do.
Heh, that looks really good - the bio I read was indeed The Knife Man, and I highly recommend it.
The revelation (true or not) that he participated in murder post-dates that bio. The theory seems to be that there was simply no way that the “resurrection men” could have randomly found enough dead pregnant women at just the right stages of pregnancy to illustrate William Hunter’s famous text … combined with rumours current at the time that bad business was going on.
The theory, so it goes, is that brother John was ordering (or turning a blind eye to) his hired “ressurectionists” deliberately choosing pregnant women to anatomize … who would not be missed.
The lengths John would go to secure an anatomical “prize” were demonstrated by his persuit of the “Irish Giant” for his collection (though admittedly, he waited until the "giant was dead - but then, he was famous).
Nothing like “circumstantial literary evidence” to build a tight case, huh?
It doesn’t sound all that incredible to me that pregnant women were dying close to term in 18th century England, from various natural causes including septicemia and pregnancy-induced hypertension. Given the malnourishment and chronic disease of the time, it would be astonishing if there weren’t plenty of deaths at or near term.
Could the two physicians have purchased bodies from people less than scrupulous about how they obtained them (similar to the Burke/Hare case)? Maybe. But proclaiming a vast murder plot based on “circumstantial literary evidence” sounds less than compelling to me.
I haven’t read anything other than the article so I don’t know what actua;l evidence the author cites (if any), but in The Knife Man (whose author does not speculate about murder) the ability of the brother John to obtain just the right specimin to illustrate the text that brother William was composing - which was a massive anatomical study of the gravid uterus at all stages from reasonably early in conception to just prior to birth - does look, in hindsight, more than a trifle suspicious. Women died in childbirth all the time of course, but the text makes clear that dead pregnant women were considered ‘exceedingly rare’ on the corpse-market (though of course there would have been some, felled by diseases or complications).
Perhaps it was a matter of adding some incentive-money to the “resurrection men” to obtain (say) the corpse of a woman in the beginning of the third trimester - and simply turning a blind eye as to how. Certainly the incentive to do so was great - the two were competing against Smellie for the prize of medical fame and fortune.
That being said, obviously there is not going to be a case that would pass muster in the court of law - if they did murder anyone, they clearly got away with it.