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Authors: Catherine Czerkawska
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might be saved, so much misery avoided!’
It was a sign of the times. There was a positive rage for machinery , for mechanisms that worked and could be fine tuned and repaired when they broke down. It was one reason why the pursuit of perpetual motion was so much in vogue. The type foundry was one such mechanism that was admirably suited to its purpose . But the problem for the new manufacturers was so often that their human operatives broke down beyond hope of repair,crushed, exhausted, sickly as the plants in my garden and certainly far more ill nourished.
When Thomas said to me that it would be a blessing if one could learn how to repair the human body, I could not help but agree with him. He respected Professor Jeffray well enough. To be sure, he would sometimes say, ‘Oh, Jeffray is such a showman!’ and there would be a slight air of disapproval even from him. Yet there was always the implied ‘but’ in such remarks. ‘But the work he does is worthwhile. But he is a fine surgeon. But anatomy is the way of the future.’
I believe now, with the benefit of all too many years of hindsight , that there was a connection between the aspirations of the new manufacturers and the desire to learn how to mend the human body in the abstract. And I doubt if there was anything very philanthropic about it. It was, rather, a matter of good business sense. Machines might run endlessly with the application of a little oil, a small adjustment here or there, so why not people? The poor factory weans could work fourteen hours a day, but those who did the full stretch soon fell ill, crippled by calamitous fatigue as much as by the constant collision of wood and metal with poorly formed bones. If machines could be fixed, then so could people. Rest and nourishment were costly alternatives. Surgery might come cheaper. This was their motivation, or so I believed and still continue to believe, although I cannot accuse everyone of an equal cynicism. And I cannot accuse my friend Thomas Brown of desiring anything but the general good of mankind, although for a long time I blamed him, ferociously and bitterly.
By the time Jeffray was performing his experiments with the reanimation of corpses, I had learned other, more subtle and yet more terrible lessons. And so had Thomas Brown. Which serves to explain why neither of us wished to witness the galvanisation of Matthew Clydesdale. His was, as it turns out, the last body to be sent for public dissection, the authorities having a little more compassion, or perhaps a little more distaste for the subject, than either of the distinguished medical men involved.
CHAPTER EIGHT
My Father and My Family
One way and another, the turn of the century was a terrible time in Glasgow. There had been shortages of even the most basic foods, oatmeal and potatoes, and there had been riots in the town, since when folk can barely afford to eat, they become weak but they also become desperate on behalf of their children. Food may have been in short supply but alcohol was freely available. A proliferation of ‘tippling houses’ gave working men a respite from all the misery. But when desperate folk have a drink inside them, the least thing will set them off, like a spark on tinder-dry moorland. Troops had been called in to disperse the crowds and had behaved with predictable brutality. Many arrests were made and people were transported to the colonies.
My family and I were by no means as badly off as some. We had the produce of the gardens to sustain us and my father had had the foresight to plant extra vegetables in our own cottage garden, but all the same, times were difficult. He had been working hard and the weather was dreich and drear as it so often is in January, that most difficult of months when the sun hardly seems to rise before it is setting again. He had been employed in taking down the old stone bridge over the Molendinar Burn, because it was becoming dangerous. The work was exhausting. I know
It was a sign of the times. There was a positive rage for machinery , for mechanisms that worked and could be fine tuned and repaired when they broke down. It was one reason why the pursuit of perpetual motion was so much in vogue. The type foundry was one such mechanism that was admirably suited to its purpose . But the problem for the new manufacturers was so often that their human operatives broke down beyond hope of repair,crushed, exhausted, sickly as the plants in my garden and certainly far more ill nourished.
When Thomas said to me that it would be a blessing if one could learn how to repair the human body, I could not help but agree with him. He respected Professor Jeffray well enough. To be sure, he would sometimes say, ‘Oh, Jeffray is such a showman!’ and there would be a slight air of disapproval even from him. Yet there was always the implied ‘but’ in such remarks. ‘But the work he does is worthwhile. But he is a fine surgeon. But anatomy is the way of the future.’
I believe now, with the benefit of all too many years of hindsight , that there was a connection between the aspirations of the new manufacturers and the desire to learn how to mend the human body in the abstract. And I doubt if there was anything very philanthropic about it. It was, rather, a matter of good business sense. Machines might run endlessly with the application of a little oil, a small adjustment here or there, so why not people? The poor factory weans could work fourteen hours a day, but those who did the full stretch soon fell ill, crippled by calamitous fatigue as much as by the constant collision of wood and metal with poorly formed bones. If machines could be fixed, then so could people. Rest and nourishment were costly alternatives. Surgery might come cheaper. This was their motivation, or so I believed and still continue to believe, although I cannot accuse everyone of an equal cynicism. And I cannot accuse my friend Thomas Brown of desiring anything but the general good of mankind, although for a long time I blamed him, ferociously and bitterly.
By the time Jeffray was performing his experiments with the reanimation of corpses, I had learned other, more subtle and yet more terrible lessons. And so had Thomas Brown. Which serves to explain why neither of us wished to witness the galvanisation of Matthew Clydesdale. His was, as it turns out, the last body to be sent for public dissection, the authorities having a little more compassion, or perhaps a little more distaste for the subject, than either of the distinguished medical men involved.
CHAPTER EIGHT
My Father and My Family
One way and another, the turn of the century was a terrible time in Glasgow. There had been shortages of even the most basic foods, oatmeal and potatoes, and there had been riots in the town, since when folk can barely afford to eat, they become weak but they also become desperate on behalf of their children. Food may have been in short supply but alcohol was freely available. A proliferation of ‘tippling houses’ gave working men a respite from all the misery. But when desperate folk have a drink inside them, the least thing will set them off, like a spark on tinder-dry moorland. Troops had been called in to disperse the crowds and had behaved with predictable brutality. Many arrests were made and people were transported to the colonies.
My family and I were by no means as badly off as some. We had the produce of the gardens to sustain us and my father had had the foresight to plant extra vegetables in our own cottage garden, but all the same, times were difficult. He had been working hard and the weather was dreich and drear as it so often is in January, that most difficult of months when the sun hardly seems to rise before it is setting again. He had been employed in taking down the old stone bridge over the Molendinar Burn, because it was becoming dangerous. The work was exhausting. I know
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