SURGEON’S HALL AND DISSECTION OF CRIMINALS
Surgeon’s Hall was the legendary venue for publicly-witnessed criminal dissections. Inside its main anatomical building, “old style” anatomy teaching took place upon its celebrated stage. Under the Murder Act of 1752, the body of the condemned man or woman was laid out and flayed open under the gawking eyes of Georgian society of London. It was a scene satirized in a printed engraving done in 1751 by William Hogarth called “The Reward of Cruelty”. Six surgeons encircle the operating stage, but the remainder of the room is packed with curious onlookers, one of whom points to a niche which houses the skeleton of a former victim of dissection. Skulls are boiling in a pot, and a dog eats the entrails that have spilled onto the floor. One surgeon is depicted trephining the skull, another dissects a foot, and a third dissects (eviscerates) the corpse of the dead criminal:
William Hogarth, 1751
Another engraving done in 1760 – 1790 by (Daniel?) Dodd is perhaps a more accurate rendering of the dissection theater with its horseshoe-shaped table. The body of a murderer is on the table, the abdomen cut open. Again, two surgeons occupy the observation area closest to the table, and the remainder of the gallery is packed with curious onlookers:
The dissections required sharp knives and other dissecting tools, but over time, the repeated use of knives and scalpels to cut through bones, ribs and the skull invariably rendered them blunt and useless. In addition, there were surgeons who desired bespoke lancets, and midwifery kits. This all served to ensure Edward Stanton a lucrative livelihood.
It is worth noting that at the time Stanton was manufacturing his instruments and surgical sets, England was undergoing a sea change in the area of surgical practitioners. The oft-repeated story of the barber shop’s trademark spiraling red and white striped pole representing bandages and blood actually has its roots in a centuries-long rift between barber-surgeons and master surgeons. By Stanton’s time, the old days when the barber-surgeon dominated the field of surgery were fading. Master surgeons were better trained, licensed, and gaining in respectability and in 1745, the surgeons had a long-awaited split from the Company of Barber-Surgeons and King George II established the London College of Surgeons.