Dead man breathing
KILSYTH Community Council recently came into possession of a number of historic papers. As a result, chairman Margot Macmillan unearthed the story of a Kilsythian who is perhaps not as well known in his native town as he should be.
Professor James Jeffray (1759-1848), was described in one of the historic papers in 1792 as 'Professor of Botany and Anatomy', but in fact he was much more than that – indeed on one occasion his house was attacked when he was suspected (wrongly) of body snatching to study anatomy.
He held the Chair of Anatomy at Glasgow University for 55 years. His other achievements included supervising the establishment of the Hunterian Museum, he was active in the founding of the Botanic Gardens, and he was honoured after death by being interred in the Glasgow Necropolis.
He also invented a surgical chainsaw, to enable excision of damaged joints with as little injury as possible being inflicted on nerves and blood vessels. Jeffray travelled widely on the continent, he was an amateur actor, a good conversationalist, and he travelled on horseback almost daily to Glasgow from Paisley, where he had settled.
His lectures were highly acclaimed and his lecture theatres crowded, this being the time of the Napoleonic Wars with the consequent need for trained medical personnel. He was twice married and had one daughter.
He also invented the surgical chainsaw, the design of which he based on a watch and chain and had manufactured by a London jeweller. This saw, and a similar one invented by another Scottish doctor, Aitken, for use in obstetrics, were the prototypes of the modern chainsaws used in the timber industry!
A curious incident involving Professor Jeffray (pictured) occurred in 1813.
In order to satisfy the requirement for corpses for dissection for student-teaching purposes, body-snatching (the theft of bodies from graves), had become common, though it was of course a crime. The body of a woman, Janet McAlister, had been stolen from Glas-gow's Ramshorn Kirkyard and it was thought (mistakenly) that Jeffray was involved, resulting in a mob smashing the windows of his house.
However, it was completely legal to obtain the bodies of hanged criminals for dissection and in 1818 the body of murderer Mathew Clydesdale was brought into the university, (then still in the High Street) for dissection in public by Professor Jeffray and Dr Andrew Ure. At that time there was great interest in 'galvanisation', the animation of dead bodies by passing of an electric current through them.
This they decided to do. By placing electrodes on various places , they were able to stimulate the muscles to reproduce, for example, the action of respiration, the facial expressions of grimacing, smiling, and so on – to the shock of the excited spectators!
Ure's later account of such procedures includes a mention of putting two moistened brass knobs on the skin, one over the phrenic nerve and the other over the diaphragm, with the suggestion that having these attached to a battery might be effective in restoring life to a dead body.
This has led one modern commentator to remark how very close Ure was to describing the electric defibrillator of today, which has saved so many lives.
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Weather for Cumbernauld
Wednesday 30 May 2012
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