THE DAYS OF BODYSNATCHING

Evening Star, Issue 17954, 27 April 1922, Page 2

THE DAYS OF BODYSNATCHING

A MEDICAL PIONEER

A native of Manchester, and a practititioner here, Joseph Jordan, took a step in Manchester 100 years ago which marked a stage in the development of the medical man’s professional training. In pious respect for Jordan’s achievement its centenary is to be formally commemorated by the Medical Faculty of the University of Manchester, and a convenient occasion occurs at tho forthcoming fiftieth anniversary of the founding of tho faculty by the transfer to Owen’s College of the Manchester Royal School of Medicine, an institution which could claim to be tho lineal descendant of .Jordan’s anatomical classes. The Manchester University Medical School of to-day is Unis linked up with (he very first elements of regular medical instruction ever given in Great Britain outside of London.

In th o seven years, 1814-1321, during

which Jordan’s .anatomical classes at Manchester wore quietly undermining the monopolies of London and Edinburgh, tho healing art was still hampered (writes a correspondent of the ‘ London Times ’) by tho extraordinary conflict between public necessity and a, legal anachronism which gave us the horrors of the body-snatching trade. Jordan, who had knocked about tho country a groat deal during four years spent as a surgeon in the militia, was early struck by the low state of medical education and the moral and social dangers by which, the student, at the most impressionable, period of his life, was assailed during his enforced attendance at lectures in London, and it was in those circumstances that he founded his classes in anatomy and began in his own house and adjoining premises the equipment of a dissecting -room, which long exceeded in efficiency anything else of the kind in the north.

In 1817, after ho had been teaching about throe years, Jordan secured the recognition oi his work by Apothecaries’ Hall; but it was not till April, 1821, that ho received tho crowning distinction of recognition by the Royal College of Surgeons in a letter which survives to this day in a glass frame on the walls of tho medical department of Manchester University. It is this letter (addressed to Iris friend Dr Hull) that gives Jordan’s work its historical value, and is the justification for the intended centenary commemoration ;

London, April 24, 1821

My dear Sir, —-I bog to acknowledge tho receipt of your letter of April 15, and am much obliged by the attention which you have given to tho subject of my inquiry. I communicated to the Court of Examiners the contents of your letter, and tho account which you give of Mr Joseph Jordan as a public teacher of anatomy in conjunction with your recommendation of him, has induced them to say that they will receive Iris certificate of the attendance upon his anatomical lectures in tho same manner as they do those of public, teachers of anatomy in the metropolis. I am, Sir, with great regard, your obedient servant. J. Bexj. Field. To Dr Hull. FIGHTING AN ELECTION.

Jordan’s success provoked rivalry, but lie continued his teaching for twenty years. Eventually, however, in, 1833, ho compromised with his chief rival, a Mr Thomas Turner, and discontinued his school on tho understanding that he would loach for a while in Mr Turner’s establishment, and would afterwards receive an election to tho honorary staff of the Manchester Infirmary. This was the summit of Jordan’s modest ambition. ITis election, conducted against some other candidates who were pushing their own claims, was fought with all the public excitement of a parliamentary contest. It cost Jordan £690, but ho thought the handsome victory ho obtained an ample compensation. This was in 1834, and from that time, when ho was nearly fifty, ho settled down to a long and unexciting career of growing usefulness and public esteem. Some years inter, In 1854, in an inaugural address to medical students, Jnr. dan admitted that in his time ho had joined in body-snatching himself, and ho defended tho proceeding with characteristic vigor. “ Hero you were,” he said, “ the public and the Legislature demanding from you a knowledge of your profession, and yet tho law utterly prevented you*from obtaining that, knowledge. The melancholy and disgraceful affair at Edinburgh (the body-snatching murders of 182 ti) broke through all this, and tho profession was placet! on a proper basis”— by the Anatomy Act of 1832. Jordan’s confession of personal participation in body-snatching was no mere tale. Tho magistrates onco “reluctantly” fined him £2O for his part in a proceeding which cost the actual lifter of »tho body twelve months in gaol. Jordan, who was born cn Match 3, 135 years ago, died in 1873 at the ago of 86, after ho had seen the Manchester Royal School of Medicine embodied in Owens College. Ho rented one house for his practice in Manchester for fifty-four years, and onl}' gave it up at 84 to seek a brief retirement in' the south,’ first at Stroud affl-Jjl -afterwards at. Hammtead,