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AT the Glasgow Circuit Court in
October, 1819, a collier of the name of Matthew Clydesdale was condemned
to death for murder, and the judge, in passing sentence, as was the
custom, ordered that, after the execution, the body should be given to Dr.
James Jeffrey, the lecturer on anatomy in the University, "to be publicly
dissected and anatomised." The
execution took place on the 4th
of November following, and the body of the murderer was taken to the
college dissecting theatre, where a large number of students and many of
the general public were gathered to witness an experiment it was proposed
to make upon it.
The intention was that a newly
invented galvanic battery should be tried with the body, and the greatest
interest had accordingly been excited. The corpse of the murderer was
placed in a sitting posture in a chair, and the handles of the instrument
put into the hands. Hardly had the battery been set working than the
auditory observed the chest of the dead man heave, and he rose to his
feet. Some of them swooned for fear, others cheered at what was deemed a
triumph of science. But the professor, alarmed at the aspect of affairs,
put his lancet in the throat of
the murderer, and he dropped back into his seat. For a long time the
community discussed the question, whether or not the man was really dead
when the battery was applied? Most probably he was not. For in those days,
death on the scaffold was slow—there was no long drop to break the
spinal cord,—it was simply a case
of strangulation. |
