WALKING WITH SKELETONS
[2019] Roll up, roll up everybody! The subject might verge on the dark side, but the atmosphere is jolly. About fifteen of us, clustered in the courtyard of Edinburgh’s Surgeons’ Hall Museums, are signed up for the Blood and Guts tour subtitled ‘The Twists and Turns of Edinburgh’s Medical History’. Our guide is Gerry, whose other regular gig is ghost tours of Edinburgh, so we are in the hands of a specialist. He assures us that the Museums’ archives are his source.
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The tour begins at the headquarters of the Royal College of Surgeons. We time-travel with Gerry to 1505, when barbers and surgeons were part of the same incorporated guild, the tenth most senior at the time after masons, weavers and butchers. I make a mental note of the nearby discreet Café 1505 for later.
In the 16 th century, the main cause of illness was thought to be miasma: bad or night air, causing different humours in the body, leading to the spread of disease. This belief lasted for a long time, untilexha ustive comparisons (helped by midwives who washed their hands) pointed to the existence of germs. Surgeons wore blood encrusted aprons as a mark of seniority and experience. Even in the mid- 19 th century, it was, Gerry tells us, ‘easier to believe in leprechauns, not germs’. In the splendid Surgeons Hall Museum, the words of a medical man illustrates the point: ‘Where are these little beasts?
Show them to us and we shall believe in them.’
We walk to a section of the University of Edinburgh linked with two famous names: Charles Darwin andArthur Conan Doyle. Darwin, aged 16, studied medicine here for two years before going to Cambridge. Arthur Conan Doyle completed his medical degree in 1881, finding the course a weary grind, with little practical emphasis on curing. Standing here in the cold light of mid-afternoon, the slight drizzle chilling our bones, we feel the history. Not for the first or last time on this tour, I am extremely glad I was born in the 20 th century.
The medical discoveries are dazzling. Take chloroform, discovered in 1847 by James Young Simpson, who tried it out on a group of his friends at a ‘chloroform party’. Yes, it worked. Queen Victoria, about to have her sixth child, was keen to try it but was overruled by her doctors. They held that painful contractions were forces ‘that the Divinity has ordained us to enjoy or suffer’. Time passed, and with baby number eight on the way, leading anaesthetistD r John Snow spoke to Prince Albert. The Queen had chloroform for 53 minutes, proclaiming it ‘delightful beyond measure’, thereby making it possible for generations of women after her.
Greyfriars Kirkyard is our next stop and naturally, we hear about the need for bodies for dissection as we are standing in just the right place to procure them. ‘Dead bodies belonged to no-one,’ Gerry says, so the opportunities were there for those with the will – and the skill - to excavate bodies (as fresh as possible) and sell them to doctors for the best price.
Our last stop takes us through Old Infirmary Lane to Surgeons Square, and another rollcall of adventures in medical history.
We hear about the dynasty of medical Munros, the story of doctors competing for cadavers, and the ghastly tale of serial killers Hare and Burke who in 1828 murdered sixteen people and sold their bodies to Dr Robert Knox for dissection at his anatomy lectures.
The tour finishes with the story of the Edinburgh Seven. Sophia Jex-Blake wanted to study medicine but was refused entry to the University of Edinburgh because ‘the brains of women were not capable of holding the knowledge required’. Then another barrier was set: seven women were needed to enrol. The seven matriculated in 1869. Accepted into the University – the first in the United Kingdom to allow entry to women - they finished their studies in 1873, despite sustained opposition and a riot. They were, however, banned from graduating.
This year, 2019, there is a postscript. On the 150th anniversary of the matriculation of the Edinburgh Seven, the University of Edinburgh is granting each of them honorary posthumous degrees: MBChB (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery).
After a visit to the wonderfully graphic Museum and a quick look at the gruesome but fascinating gift shop, Café 1505 calls. In a nod to the Queen and the courage of women, I order tea and a slice ofVictoria sponge.
museum.rcsed.ac.uk
© Jane Sandilands 2023
In the 16 th century, the main cause of illness was thought to be miasma: bad or night air, causing different humours in the body, leading to the spread of disease. This belief lasted for a long time, untilexha ustive comparisons (helped by midwives who washed their hands) pointed to the existence of germs. Surgeons wore blood encrusted aprons as a mark of seniority and experience. Even in the mid- 19 th century, it was, Gerry tells us, ‘easier to believe in leprechauns, not germs’. In the splendid Surgeons Hall Museum, the words of a medical man illustrates the point: ‘Where are these little beasts?
Show them to us and we shall believe in them.’
We walk to a section of the University of Edinburgh linked with two famous names: Charles Darwin andArthur Conan Doyle. Darwin, aged 16, studied medicine here for two years before going to Cambridge. Arthur Conan Doyle completed his medical degree in 1881, finding the course a weary grind, with little practical emphasis on curing. Standing here in the cold light of mid-afternoon, the slight drizzle chilling our bones, we feel the history. Not for the first or last time on this tour, I am extremely glad I was born in the 20 th century.
The medical discoveries are dazzling. Take chloroform, discovered in 1847 by James Young Simpson, who tried it out on a group of his friends at a ‘chloroform party’. Yes, it worked. Queen Victoria, about to have her sixth child, was keen to try it but was overruled by her doctors. They held that painful contractions were forces ‘that the Divinity has ordained us to enjoy or suffer’. Time passed, and with baby number eight on the way, leading anaesthetistD r John Snow spoke to Prince Albert. The Queen had chloroform for 53 minutes, proclaiming it ‘delightful beyond measure’, thereby making it possible for generations of women after her.
Greyfriars Kirkyard is our next stop and naturally, we hear about the need for bodies for dissection as we are standing in just the right place to procure them. ‘Dead bodies belonged to no-one,’ Gerry says, so the opportunities were there for those with the will – and the skill - to excavate bodies (as fresh as possible) and sell them to doctors for the best price.
Our last stop takes us through Old Infirmary Lane to Surgeons Square, and another rollcall of adventures in medical history.
We hear about the dynasty of medical Munros, the story of doctors competing for cadavers, and the ghastly tale of serial killers Hare and Burke who in 1828 murdered sixteen people and sold their bodies to Dr Robert Knox for dissection at his anatomy lectures.
The tour finishes with the story of the Edinburgh Seven. Sophia Jex-Blake wanted to study medicine but was refused entry to the University of Edinburgh because ‘the brains of women were not capable of holding the knowledge required’. Then another barrier was set: seven women were needed to enrol. The seven matriculated in 1869. Accepted into the University – the first in the United Kingdom to allow entry to women - they finished their studies in 1873, despite sustained opposition and a riot. They were, however, banned from graduating.
This year, 2019, there is a postscript. On the 150th anniversary of the matriculation of the Edinburgh Seven, the University of Edinburgh is granting each of them honorary posthumous degrees: MBChB (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery).
After a visit to the wonderfully graphic Museum and a quick look at the gruesome but fascinating gift shop, Café 1505 calls. In a nod to the Queen and the courage of women, I order tea and a slice ofVictoria sponge.
museum.rcsed.ac.uk
© Jane Sandilands 2023