Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - August - 2010 Issue
<i>Pieces of You</i> from Better World Books
Smile for the camera! - Dr. Clapp's trap.
While most of the dismembering that takes place in this catalogue was done for good scientific or medical cause, Better World has slipped a few books in here that move from medicine to mayhem. Buck Ruxton knew both. He was an English doctor who believed his wife had been unfaithful. This evidently troubled Dr. Ruxton, as he proceeded to murder both his wife and her maid. It was only after their deaths that he proceeded to perform surgery, dismembering their bodies and spreading the pieces across the countryside. This was not a gruesome ritual, but an attempt to make the bodies unidentifiable. Instead, Dr. Ruxton became an inspiration for forensic science. Forensic pathologist Dr. John Glaister and anatomist James Cooper Brash put the pieces back together, so to speak, which led to Ruxton's eventual arrest and conviction. Glaister and Brash wrote this book about the case: Medico-Legal Aspects of the Ruxton Case. Dr. Ruxton was rewarded for his role in the advancement of pathology by being hung at the end of a rope. $70.
Next we have a book about a group of people who did much to advance the training and skill of England's doctors, and yet they received nothing but public scorn in return for their efforts: The Sack-'Em-Up Men: An Account of the Rise and Fall of the Modern Resurrectionists. The modern resurrectionists were not theologians. Actually, the more common term for their profession is "body snatcher." Dr. James Moores Ball recounts the story of the men who would dig up graves in the "dead" of night to sell the bodies for medical purposes. The market for this product was understandable. At the time, physicians and scientists had no access to bodies for study. Who would want surgery performed by someone who had never practiced the procedure before, not even actually seen what's in there? Still, the law said that no human bodies could be dissected except those of executed murderers, who were in short supply. This gruesome practice was finally laid to rest after the passage of the Anatomy Act of 1832, which provided that unclaimed paupers' bodies, or those voluntarily willed to science, could be used. $80.
Here is a work from Dr. George Wood Clapp (no, he was a dentist, not a gynecologist). His ever-popular 1910 tract is entitled Mechanical Side of Anatomical Articulation. Evidently, Dr. Clapp was one of America's most popular dentists (not that this would take much) in the early 20th century. He promoted dental health on the radio and articles he wrote for DENISPLY, a manufacturer of false teeth. In this work he emphasizes the importance of accounting for movement of the jaw when creating dentures. $30.
Better World Books may be found online at www.betterworldbooks.com. Inquiries concerning these books may be made to tgilchrist@betterworldbooks.com.
This catalogue is available for download through the following link: http://images.betterworldbooks.com/content/ARC-Pieces-Of-You.pdf
