uman being."

A Mr. Boys, who died in 1835, wished to be made into "essential salts" for
the use of his female friends. In a letter to Dr. Campbell, written four
years before his death, he asks: "Are you now disposed (without Burking)
to accomplish my wish, when my breath or spirit shall have ceased to
animate my carcase, to perform the operation of vitrifying my bones, and
sublimating the rest, thereby cheating the Devil of his due, according to
the ideas of some devotees among Christians? And, that I may not offend
the delicate olfactory nerves of my female friends with a mass of
putridity, if it be possible, let me rather fill a few little bottles of
essential salts therefrom, and revive their drooping spirits. It may be
irksome to you to superintend the business, but, perhaps, you have
knowledge of some rising genius or geniuses who may be glad of a subject
without paying for it. Let them slash and cut, and divide, as best please
'em."

The following account, taken from a newspaper of 1810, shows that
untoward events sometimes followed a request of this kind. A journeyman
tailor died at the _Black Prince_, in Chandos Street, and directed, in his
will, that his body should be opened in the presence of Mr. Wood, the
landlord. This instruction was carried out. The paragraph goes on to say
that the dissection was scarcely concluded "when the landlord, a stranger
to such exhibitions, was seized with sickness and vomiting; and, on
reaching the bar, was prevailed upon by his wife to take a glass of brandy
and water; in a few minutes he was obliged to be carried to bed, never to
rise again; on Friday last, the third day from the attack, he died in a
state of delirium, not from contagion, or a predisposition to disease, but
solely from the impression made upon his mind by the anatomical
performance, which, he observed, exceeded in horror any thing he had ever
beheld."

It was not an uncommon thing for persons to try to put into effect part of
Dermott's plan, by offering to leave their bodies for anatomical purposes,
on the condition that they were paid a certain sum down. This was
generally only a swindling dodge, and one by which the teachers were not
to be caught, as they could have no hold on the persons whose bodies they
purchased, nor could they compel the friends to give them up after death.
The following letter, preserved amongst Sir Astley Cooper's papers, and
now forming part of the Stone Collection at the Royal C