Human curiosities and the Royal Society, 1699-1751

Abstract

Although anatomy is primarily concerned with the structure, and physiology with the functioning of the human body, knowledge of both is essential to the surgeon and the physician. This certainly applies to the living ‘human curiosities’ in the present paper: they and post-mortem specimens have been selected to illustrate myology and osteology, two branches of anatomical science with which the Royal Society was long preoccupied. The second charter of the Royal Society made special provision for it ‘to demand and receive the bodies of executed criminals, and to anatomize them, as the College of Physicians and the Company of Surgeons of London use or enjoy’, but there is little direct evidence that this prerogative was exercised. The College of Physicians encountered practical difficulties in obtaining the bodies of the four executed criminals to which they were entitled, as seen by its president Sir Hans Sloane’s petitions to Parliament in 1721 and 1723 (when they became law). Entries in Sloane’s ‘Humana’ Catalogue suggest that he made other arrangements for his own collections: 14. The sceleton of a man made by Mr. Verier of the body of a Highwayman executed at Tiburn and bought by me 3.4.6. ... 534. The kidneys of a malefactor hang’d at Tyburn wherein appear two ureters & 2 basons in each kidney, which ureters join before their insertion into the bladder. Given me by Dr. Rutty.