The Shadow of Great Britain

589: Chapter 298: The Duality of the Choleric Nightwatchman 589: Chapter 298: The Duality of the Choleric Nightwatchman In the drawing room, Arthur leaned on the sofa, his expression complex and ever-changing, indescribable.

Be it the intermittent arguments echoing from the corridor outside the drawing room or the memories flashing through his mind, it was hard for him to accept the reality of dissecting patients.

Indeed, after last year’s body snatching case in London, Sir Peel had already drafted an “Anatomy Act” and formally submitted it to the House of Commons after the Tory Cabinet fell earlier this year.

This Act gained near-effortless high vote support from MPs of both parties and officially became part of Britain’s numerous medical regulatory methods after approval by the House of Lords.

Yet, even so, to this day, there are still many religious figures and medical workers who oppose this Act.

During the voting process, all 26 bishops of the National Church who held clerical seats in the House of Lords voted against it.

The five most senior bishops—the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Bishops of London, Durham, and Winchester—issued a joint statement condemning the government for staging an absolute farce.

Not just the National Church, but Catholicism and Judaism were no better off.

Both Jewish Rabbis and Catholic Priests strongly disliked the “Anatomy Act.” Clergy from any religion were unwilling to conduct funerals for bodies that had been dissected.

The attitude of religious leaders further deepened the distrust of general believers in autopsies, and some even boasted that if they found any doctor dissecting bodies, they would certainly tie them to the stake and burn them to death.

Not long after the Anatomy Act was released, all fourteen private anatomy schools in England were subjected to violent attacks.

To ensure the safety of these medical students and teachers, Scotland Yard, responsible for the security of Greater London, had to assemble multiple times and arrested many participants in the violent acts.

To quell the public’s anger, the Cabinet was forced to make a second revision to the “Anatomy Act,” establishing an anatomy committee in the House of Commons and appointing an anatomy inspector each in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.

According to regulations, these inspectors had to pass an anatomy test and report the specific details of the dissected bodies to the Home Secretary.

Their duty was to inspect places likely to be involved in dissection activities and ensure the lawful operation of body dissections.

Notables such as the Earl Grey, the Prime Minister, and Sir Peel, the leader of the Tory Party, also frequently visited the influential bishops in the religious community, humbly asking them to consider the bigger picture and use their influence to persuade their clergy to agree to conduct funerals for dissected bodies.

Luckily or unluckily, at this time, several more body snatching cases were exposed in Lancashire.

Out of a desire to forbid such evil, the bishops ultimately decided to compromise with the government.

They agreed to bury dissected bodies according to religious rituals.

Correspondingly, the government also had to ensure increased law enforcement against the illegal use of bodies.

Although the government agreed to their demands, from what Arthur understood, the fulfillment of this promise was far from ideal.

Although the “Anatomy Act” had brought unclaimed bodies from poorhouses within the range of legal dissection, expanding the source of legal bodies and to a certain extent curbing the rampant crime of body snatching.

But in reality, the anatomy committee established by the House of Commons wasn’t performing their duties well.

It was too difficult for just four people to monitor all of Britain’s dissection activities.

Moreover, the introduction of the “Anatomy Act” had also spawned another gray business.

Many poorhouse boards treated bodies as commodities to be auctioned, and the various medical colleges became bidders.

Whichever offered the highest price could get more bodies first, thus providing better teaching quality, enhancing their social reputation, and medical strength.

Because of Arthur’s personal attention to the body trade, he understood deeply that it was an extremely profitable business with no capital.

A body could usually sell for twelve to sixteen Guineas.

Meanwhile, a London worker’s annual income was typically just thirty pounds.

This meant that just two bodies could match a worker’s annual income.

However, in the face of transactions that skirted the edge of legality, Scotland Yard did not show the same severity as they did toward body snatchers.

From the standpoint of law enforcement, at least they were now using money to solve the problem instead of expanding their supply through murder.

This was confirmed during the periodic inspections of the various medical schools.

Nowadays, their body sources had all shifted to poorhouses instead of some ambiguous origin.

But while medical schools’ sources of bodies could be clarified, the bodies dissected by lower-class doctors like Hadcassle could never possess complete legal documentation.

Firstly, he couldn’t afford the exorbitant price of bodies.

Secondly, with the British government’s efficiency and customary bureaucratic style, how could a doctor with no connections and no background sort out the complicated review process in such a short time?

In this regard, Rosenberg had no problem chastising Hadcassle.

Even more so, if this incident had occurred in Scotland Yard’s jurisdiction, Arthur could have arrested this clinic doctor under the “Anatomy Act” and transferred him to the Magistrates’ Court for the crime of illegal possession of bodies.