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Editorial
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In ‘The good is oft interred with their bones’ Trevor Hughes tells the story of how, despite the many scandals of body snatching and dissection, the acquisition of accurate anatomical knowledge was fundamental to the evolution of modern medicine. This is a tale punctuated by the Anatomy Act of 1832 that sought to discourage illicit supplies organized by the ‘Sack-em-up Men’—Burke and Hare in Edinburgh, and Bishop and Williams in London—by regulating and assisting human anatomical dissection, and by the Human Tissue Act of 2004, reacting to practices in Bristol and Liverpool (UK) that offended the sensitivities of a public now informed and proactive with respect to ownership of tissue archived in hospitals, museums and (as religious relics) in churches (page 1167). Starting with Mondinus of Padua, and pausing briefly to consider the contributions of John Caius in Cambridge, Professor Hughes settles on Thomas Willis of Oxford as the founder
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