Summary:
A scathing critique of public 'anatomical museums' in London, denouncing them as obscene fronts for charlatanry and extortion, and calling for legislative regulation.
The Museum Nuisance
We again direct attention to the public nuisances, termed “Anatomical Museums,” which congregate in our leading thoroughfares the immoral and depraved. Under the pretext of informing the popular mind on questions of physiological research, they are made so many mediums whereby charlatanry is enabled to successfully pursue a plan of systematic extortion. The least reputable, if one can be more so than another, as well as the most undisguisedly offensive of these so-called scientific institutions, is that recently opened in the Strand. The passer-by has his attention attracted by a number of wax heads, presenting a curious combination of craft, cunning, and crime, singularly indicative of the objects and spirit of the exhibition. A sinister-looking official, attired in a nondescript uniform, obtrudes on simpletons, whom he selects with due discrimination, small pamphlets, entitled “Literary Photographs, or Secret Life Pictures for Private Study,” and invites them to enter the museum, which is open free of charge. Once within, attention is directed to a series of wax models chiefly relating to either parturition or the genital organs. When curiosity is thereby aroused, those present are invited to enter an inner chamber, a kind of mystery of mysteries, where a “Florentine Venus” is about to be lectured on by some learned professor, who manifests a marked disregard of his h’s. To keep the audience select, those present are informed that “the trifling sum of sixpence is charged.” Those who yield to curiosity at such a price may listen with patience to a demonstration, which is concluded by the exhibition of models of the male and female genitals, and the assurance that Dr. Lowe or Bell—perhaps we mistake the proprietor’s name—gives advice gratis on all private complaints, and may be consulted daily. The outer room is freely open to the male sex of all ages. We have witnessed youths of tender years leave it with their minds “improved.” From an early hour in the morning till a late hour in the evening there is a perpetual crowd so practised upon. The exhibition seems a thriving concern, and there can be no doubt that it affords to its proprietor a sufficiently ample recompense for his show of generosity in providing free instruction.
Some measures must be taken to prevent a continuance of this state of things. It cannot be that one of the principal thoroughfares of our city is to be thus outraged by such flagrant indecency and no steps be taken for its prevention. If it be true that Lord Campbell’s Act “for more effectually preventing the Sale of Obscene Books, Pictures, Prints, and other Articles,” falls short of the requirements of the present case, surely it behoves the Legislature to take effective steps for preventing Science being prostituted to the purposes of Vice. We have reason to believe that, in the next session of Parliament, a Bill will be introduced for this purpose. The only argument on which anatomical museums are permitted rests on the assumption of their use as schools of public instruction. In all matters medical and surgical, and relating thereto, the law now constitutes the Medical Council the arbiter. If such museums are placed under the control of the Council, and a certificate of their fitness for the purposes they are alleged to be intended for, and the necessity as well as the propriety of their institution, be conditions precedent to a licence for their existence, no injustice can possibly be inflicted on anyone, and the public will be protected from the indecency and obscenity which they at present, too frequently without intention, contribute to maintain. We believe that no small amount of the sensuality and crime, of the indecency and outrage, which have recently so disgusted the public, may be traced to the existence of museums of this character. There is a form of depravity which battens on the contemplation of vice and the monstrous in nature, and, by a process of distempered sympathy, acquires thereby a desire for imitation. It is a fact within the experience of psychologists, that an imitative propensity to the perpetration of crime is a common feature of disordered mind. By a parity of reasoning, it may be assumed that indulgence in abnormal excesses and unnatural offences is certainly not diminished by the contemplation of the worst forms which depravity assumes. Be this as it may, the fact is as sad as it is true, that at present the vice existing in the metropolis is of an exceptional character; that prurient and loathsome debauchery of the worst possible form obtrudes itself on public notice with a frequency difficult to account for by any ordinary process of reasoning. We believe that much is due to the class of exhibitions to which we allude; and we advance this as but one out of many arguments for their abolition. The heart-burnings and home miseries they occasion are too well known to need any exposition at our hands. That they have been so long permitted is a scandal to our magistracy, and a gross outrage on that liberty which the law concedes to well-disposed citizens who cater for public instruction or amusement that they may acquire the means of support. As schools for anatomical learning, these metropolitan public “anatomical museums” are worthless; as scientific exhibitions, they are so many arenas of public indecency, the sole object of which is the plunder of all those whom curiosity or simplicity may induce to become visitors. Those who keep them and profess to practise either medicine or surgery for the purpose of curing disease, do so in violation of the provisions of the Medical Act unless they be “legally qualified medical practitioners;” and we are happy to say that no such now exist as a disgrace to the ranks of our profession. There is not a medical man or an honest citizen who has not a direct interest in the suppression of these nurseries of vice and crime. We earnestly trust that the Bill to which we have referred will meet with the prompt approval of the Legislature, as we are sure it will have the cordial support of every right-minded member of the community.