were appointed to carry out the provisions of the Act.
The first Inspectors were Dr. J. C. Somerville, for England; Dr. Craigie,
of Edinburgh, for Scotland; and Sir James Murray, of Dublin, for Ireland.
There was no provision for punishing persons found violating graves; it
had been already decided that this was an offence at common law; and
presumably the framers of the Act had, at last, sufficient faith in their
measure to believe that it would put an end to the proceedings of the
resurrection-men. If that were so, they were not disappointed. After the
passing of the Act the resurrection-man, as such, drops out of history;
his occupation was gone, and one of the most nefarious trades that the
world has ever seen came completely to an end. Public feeling against
these men did not all at once subside; this strongly militated against
their getting employment, and some of them moved to other quarters, where
they lived under assumed names.

In looking back it is impossible not to regret that Parliament was so slow
to believe that legislation in the direction of the Anatomy Act would do
away with the evils of the resurrection-men. This fact was urged upon them
by the teachers; but popular feeling was so dead against the anatomists,
who were thought to be responsible for even the worst crimes of the
resurrection-men, that Parliament seemed to fear to do anything which
favoured the teachers, although the great disadvantages under which they
suffered were thoroughly well known. Perhaps the best tribute to the
success of the Act, is the very small alterations which have been made in
it between 1832 and the present day.

A glance at the regulations in force in foreign countries for the supply
of bodies, at the time of the passing of the Anatomy Act, shows that when
a fair provision was made by law for the supply of bodies, the
resurrection-men were unknown. The great advantages of the student on the
Continent, as compared with his brethren in England, were thus pointed out
to the Committee by Mr. [afterwards Sir] William Lawrence: "I see many
medical persons from France, Germany, and Italy, and have found, from my
intercourse with them, that anatomy is much more successfully cultivated
in those countries than in England; at the same time I know, from their
numerous valuable publications on anatomy, that they are far before us in
this science; we have no original standard works at all worthy of the
present state of knowledge." I