A Respectable Occupation: - University of Hertfordshire Research ...

elatively few deaths in small towns and the Act made it illegal to transport
bodies over long distances, so Oxford and Cambridge Universities
experienced particular difficulties. 64
This style of training was however the way forward and the
universities and the teaching hospitals managed to persevere. By 1903 the
ratio of students to available corpses was between 2.3 to 1, to 11 to 1. The
use of formaldehyde as a preservative helped by making it possible to store
bodies and so smooth out demand and supply. Additionally, it is possible
that teachers took advantage of post mortems, being conducted in the
hospital, as a teaching opportunity. 65
Moving now to the situation of the apothecary and surgeon whose
training differed significantly from that of a physician. The apothecary‘s
education was based on an apprenticeship, rather than a university course
and appealed to those from a poorer background. 66 The original Charter of
the Society of Apothecaries did not require applicants for membership to be
examined in any other subject than pharmacy; their medical knowledge was
self-taught by extensive reading, an accepted method at around 1700. 67
They did need a knowledge of Latin and a fair standard of general
education, but not to the level required by the universities. The level
demanded by the universities would have been difficult to obtain by a boy
from a poor background, who was forced to start an apprenticeship at the
age of 15. However between 1815 – the date of the Apothecaries Act – and
the 1832 Anatomy Act in Oxford and Manchester‟, 127.
64 Hutton, „The Working of the 1832 Anatomy Act in Oxford and Manchester‟, 133.
65 Hutton, „The Working of the 1832 Anatomy Act in Oxford and Manchester‟, 138-139.
66 Reader, Professional Men, pp. 41-42.
67 Burnby, A Study of the English Apothecary from 1660 to 1760, p. 81.
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