Page:The Hunterian oration, for the year 1819.djvu/39

Rh escence of the public. In other countries it is considered, that those who have been supported by the public, when unable to support themselves, die in its debt, and that their remains may therefore, with justice, be converted to the public use. In England, however, the indigent who suffer from illness and injury are supported and relieved chiefly by the liberality of that benevolence which is so creditable to our national character; and much as I wish for the promotion of medical knowledge, I should be sorry if the bodies of the poor were to be considered as public property without reserve in our own country. For better would it seem to me, that medical science should cease, and our bodily sufferings continue, than that the natural rights and best feelings of humanity should not be equally respected in all classes of society; or that merely because persons are poor, they should be prevented from paying the last tribute of respect and regard to their departed relatives by attending their remains to the grave. Yet if the directors of