Doctors' Accountability

A question that our group came up with during class was, why were the doctors of the time put on a pedestal so to speak? Why weren't they held accountable for where the bodies were coming from? In Mary Roach's article she talked about the two men, William Burke and William Hare, who murdered over fifteen people to give to Dr. Robert Knox in exchange for money. Burke and Hare ended up getting caught, with Hare turning against Burke in order to not be killed as well. Burke was hung and dissected. But through all this Knox was never charged for anything. He had to have known that the men had gotten all the bodies in a questionable manner. Many of the bodies had suspicious injuries that should have made him think twice about it, but he didn't. I understand that doctors back then had limited cadavers to work with but at the same time I don't think that they should condone murder for the sake of their medical practices. 


The fact that many doctors had the "don't ask don't tell" philosophy of where the cadavers came from plays into the idea of whether dissection of bodies was even necessary, or if it still is today. I would argue that yes it it. I know that many people in class said they wouldn't want someone operating on them if they had never done so before, which I agree with. I wouldn't want a doctor operating on me if all they had done was read about the procedure in a textbook. I do recognize that medical students do clinics where they watch surgeries being done, but I think that hands on experience is key to learning many things, especially things in the medical field. While I do think that dissection of cadavers is necessary, I also think that there should be if there isn't already, regulations and certain ethic codes in place for the treatment of cadavers.  They were people once and should be treated with respect. Yes the people dissecting them may want or need to desensitize themselves from that fact that it was a person, but they should still remember that fact enough to respect them and not totally treat them as a medical object.