SELLING ONE'S OWN SKELETON.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 232, 10 December 1887, Page 12

SELLING ONE'S OWN SKELETON.

H\s a man a right to dispose of his dead body ? The weight of authority seems to be in favour of an answer in the affirmative, but a new decision will soon be rendered by the Hungarian courts. It appears that a man named Fabry re" cently died at Buda Pestb who measured seven feet three inches "in his stockings.'' Several years ago he sold his .skeleton to the Anthropological Museum of that city for a considerable sum, and that institution naturally laid claim to his corpse on the announcement of hi& death. The widow, however, would not give up the remains of her elongated spouse, and insisted that they f-hould be burned. The question has been referred to the courts, and we shall have another legal opinion on this interesting subject. It seems there lived at Kief a shopkeeper | nant?cl Raskoiovitch, who was remarkable for having an enormous head — out of proportion and unhealthy looking. This pro digious cranium surmounting a frail body had a most singular effect, Raskorovityh SGfeihCd pr mul nf !--- '«&£ naiuna, ahu spent | the most of his time seated in front of his shop. He was weak-minded and feeble in health. It so happened that a Dr. Walter had occasion to pass Raskorovifcch's shop daily, and became so interested in his abnormal development that he finally offered the shopkeeper a con&iderable sum in cash if he would sign a paper leaving him his head after death. The man consented, pocketed the money, and >vent on so loner a "spree" that his enfeebled constitution Gould not react from the effects, and death ensued. Dr. Walter, on learning the facts, appeared on the scene and claimed his head. The widow, being ignorant of the transaction, protested. The courts were appealed to and decided that the contract, having been made in the interest of science, must be respected, and the bereaved one was compelled to bury her husband headless. In the month of January, 1474, the physicians and surgeons Of Paris represented to Louis XL thafc *' several persons of quality" being afflicted with diverse diseases, it would be very useful to examine that part of the body so affected. It so happened that a man who suffered from the stone had been sentenced to death for robbery, and the surgeons obtained permission to operate on him "for scientific purposes." The operation was public and proved successful, so that the culprit was not only cured in a fortnight, but was pardoned, and a subscription taken up in his behalf. Thus it happened that the man had to be sentenced to be hanged in order to be cured of his disease, and that, had his sentence been executed, the surgeons, who operated on him living, would not have been allowed to touch the corpse. Not long afterward the dissection 'of criminals was made legal in France, and over the door of the first operating-room opened in Toulouse was placed this inscription : "This is the place where death comes to the aid of life," In Paris to-day there exists a society whose members bind themselves to allow an autopsy to be made on their bodies immediately after death. Gambetta belonged to thu association, and it was Dr. Mathias Duval to whose lot it fell to examine the locality of the disease and study the brain of the eloquent Frenchman.—" Chicago Times."