The Dead Shall Not Rest
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observations on fossil bones: John Hunter was at odds with the established thought, maintaining that fossils took “many thousand years” to form.
Galileo persecuted: In 1633 Galileo was found “vehemently suspect of heresy” for believing the sun and not the earth lay at the center of the universe, according to the Catholic Church. He lived under house arrest for the rest of his life.
Newton: The great scientist Isaac Newton opposed King James II, who wanted only Roman Catholics to be in positions of power in government and academia.
Archbishop Ussher: James Ussher (1581–1656) was Archbishop of Armagh, and his theory about the age of the world prevailed among many until the eighteenth century.
Beauty and the Beast: Originally a French fairy tale, the most popular version was translated into English in 1757.
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a child’s poppet: A doll.
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Earls Court: The district was a quiet village in the 1780s, about two miles outside London.
famous collection of species: Much of John Hunter’s collection was destroyed in the Blitz; however, thousands of specimens remain and are housed today in the Hunterian Museum, London.
villa of brick: John Hunter purchased farmland at Earls Court in 1765, but his house was not completed until 1783. Lightning conductors, invented by his friend Benjamin Franklin, were installed on the chimney stacks. The house was demolished in 1886.
a lion: John Hunter built three subterranean dens in which to house his collection of wild cats.
nine vulpine monsters: Wolves, jackals, and dogs were penned together. One litter produced nine hybrids out of a jackal bitch and a mastiff.
wing bones: Experimenting on birds from his own aviary, John Hunter proved that air sacs in their bone cavities communicate with the lungs.
affairs of the heart: Count Boruwlaski married a French noblewoman, Isalina Borboutin, of normal height.
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cur: Slang for a mixed-breed dog.
easement of irons: Everything had its price in Newgate. For a fee the leg irons, worn constantly by all prisoners, could be removed. Extra food, bedding, alcohol, and water could also be provided.
hangings at Tyburn: The gallows at Tyburn stood on the area known as Hyde Park today. Executions were held at eight A.M. on Monday mornings. A multiple hanging might attract around one hundred thousand people. The gallows were last used in November 1783.
scrofula: A type of tuberculosis affecting the lymphatic system around the neck. It was also known as King’s Evil because it was widely held that a king’s touch could cure it.
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scragged: Slang for “hanged.”
Corporation of Surgeons: Each year six hanged criminals were dissected by members of the Corporation.
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Garrick: David Garrick was considered the finest actor of his day. He died in 1779.
small beer: Weak ale. Water was considered so dangerous to drink that even children drank beer. Some hospitals allowed patients three pints a day free of charge.
sodomite: The penalty for homosexuality was death.
molly house: A tavern or private room where homosexual men could meet.
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ancient or modern history: This quotation is from the Morning Herald newspaper, which sang Byrne’s praises on more than one occasion.
Daniel Solander: A Swedish botanist who worked in the new British Museum, he died suddenly, aged forty-nine, from a stroke, and Hunter did not hesitate to dissect his friend.
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remove the painful polyps: Haydn underwent surgery several times to remove the polyps, but they kept reoccurring.
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cauldron: A sketch of this vat, housed in a brick casing, can be seen in the Hunterian Museum.
Marquis of Rockingham: John Hunter was one of the many surgeons who attended the British prime minister, who suffered terrible abdominal pain during his second term in office in 1782. On his death, Hunter performed a postmortem, but it proved inconclusive. He did, however, note that the valves to the arteries of the heart were partly furred.
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sack ’em up man: A resurrectionist. See Chapter 1.
mortsafe: A framework of iron bars used to protect graves from robbers.
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There is no health in my flesh: Psalm 38:3–6.
poisonous vapor: Laurel water is a poison whose chief toxic component is cyanide, which is distilled from laurel cherries. Diluted, it was used primarily for bronchial ailments.
pink bloom: A sign that is sometimes found when cyanide poisoning has occurred is a red or pink discoloration of the skin.
placing his own lips on hers: Dr. H. R. Silvester is said to have pioneered what was known as the Silvester Method. First appearing in the British Medical Journal in 1858, the position of the prostrate patient’s arms was alternated between above the head and against the chest to help respiration. The practice is now obsolete.
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large quantities: Contemporary experiments on two ounces of undiluted laurel water showed it took a greyhound thirty seconds to die in convulsions. The Emperor Nero also used it to poison members of his family.
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Corny Magrath: A famous giant, Cornelius Magrath was born in 1736 in Ireland. When he died in 1760, mourners were drugged and his body was stolen for dissection by students at Trinity College, Dublin. His bones were preserved and put on show. They still remain at the college.
sent far away: Up until the American Revolution some British convicts were sent to North America; however, after 1776 this practice stopped and the British were forced to look elsewhere, to the newly discovered Australia.
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Old Bailey: The origins of the Central Criminal Court date back to the late sixteenth century, but the court was rebuilt in 1774.
sodomite: There were a number of homosexual castrati, as Casanova’s accounts of eighteenth-century Italy testify.
wap: Slang for “to have sex with.”
moon-cursor: A link boy or man (see chapter 8) who robs his clients or leads them into a gang of robbers in the dark.
pleaded their bellies: Pregnant women often asked for clemency. At the Old Bailey between 1674 and 1830, 268 women who were sentenced to death claimed pregnancy. However, the Murder Act of 1752, making hanging for murder mandatory within two days of sentence, made this far less likely.
a large glass mirror: A mirrored reflector was placed above the bar or dock in the courtroom so that light from the windows would illuminate the faces of the accused, so the jury could see their expressions. A sounding board over their heads also amplified their voices.
musico: A derogatory term for a castrato in the eighteenth century.
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Kew Palace: A royal palace on the banks of the Thames, favored by King George III before his madness.
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Whigs and Tories: The main political parties of the time.
Mr. Katterfelto: His solar microscope afforded views of insects.
Mr. Breslaw: A magician and mind reader.
Patrick Cotter O’Brien: An Irish giant who arrived in England in 1779 and exhibited himself in Bristol.
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rhinoceros hair: Bristles were sometimes used to show where blood vessels began or ended. Rhinoceros hair was considered ideal.
lizard with a double tail: Hunter captured this while serving in the army on an island off Brittany, France. It is preserved in the Hunterian Museum.
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move premises: John Howison even took rooms near Byrne. He was listed in the parish rates books at No. 12 Cockspur Street for a while in 1783. Byrne moved lodgings several times in order to avoid him.
piercing the mound of her rounding belly: While there is no written evidence that John Hunter performed abortions in this manner, he did assist in terminating the pregnancy of Mary, Counte
ss of Strathmore, by giving her “a black inky kind of medicine” to drink.
abortions: These were not illegal in the United Kingdom until 1803 when “making an abortion after quickening” became a capital crime.
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a very special piece of paper: From 1725 the Bank of England issued partly printed banknotes for completion in manuscript. The £ sign and the first digit were printed but other details had to be written. By 1745 denominations ranged from £20 to £1,000.
English Channel: The term “English Channel” may have come from the Dutch Engelse Kanaal, used on Dutch maps since the sixteenth century.
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Ancient Library of Alexandria: Created in the third century B.C ., in Alexandria, Egypt, this was the largest and most significant great library of the ancient world.
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Greenland harpooners: The Morning Herald described the anatomists as clamoring after the giant’s body “just as Greenland harpooners would an enormous whale.”
William Cruikshank and Matthew Baillie at the Great Windmill Street: The two anatomists succeeded William Hunter in the running of his famous anatomy school.
John Sheldon: The anatomist lived with the preserved body of a woman in a glass case in his bedroom for ten years.
hide himself in the giant’s box: The Morning Herald reported that an anatomist had ordered a niche made for himself in the giant’s coffin, so that he would be on hand at the “witching time of night, when church-yards yawn.”
blood that spilled: Charles Byrne died on Sunday, June 1, 1783.
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Pidcock: An animal dealer who owned a menagerie in the Strand.
coffin in the sea: It is believed that it was Byrne’s express wish that he be buried in a lead coffin at sea, although no direct evidence of his burial wishes survives.
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boundary stone: From 1550 the bridge along the route from London out to Southwark, toward Kent, was regarded as the limit of the City of London’s authority. There is still a boundary stone stating this.
Thomas a Becket inn: St. Thomas-a-Watering was the first rest stop on the journey to Kent where travelers would traditionally water their horses. The history of the landmark pub near this site, called the Thomas a Becket, cannot, however, be traced back further than 150 years.
epiphyses: The ends of long bones, originally separated from the main bones by a layer of cartilage but later united to the main bones through ossification.
duelist’s jejunum: The piece of intestine with a bullet hole in it belonged to Colonel Frederick Thomas, who was killed in an illegal duel in 1787. John Hunter attended the man, but there was nothing he could do to save him.
for study and posterity: John Hunter was a man of extraordinary vision. His preservation of Charles Byrne’s skeleton led, in 2011, to the discovery of a gene that causes a certain form of giantism.
an aneurysm in his leg: Hunter pioneered a new technique in this field that went on to save countless lives.
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Gravesend: A major crossing point of the Thames since the fourteenth century. The Native American princess Pocahontas, who was married to an early Virginia settler, died here before returning to America. There is a statue of her in St. Giles’s Churchyard.
cara: Irish for “friend.”
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water buffaloes: John Hunter drove a cart pulled by three Asiatic water buffaloes.
What mysteries did this skull hold? Byrne’s skull was opened in 1909 and traces of a pituitary tumor that caused a hormonal imbalance were discovered.
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Reculver: The twin towers of Reculver’s ruined church, nicknamed the two sisters, are the main landmark along the stretch of coast from Herne Bay to Margate.
pier: Up until the end of the eighteenth century Margate Harbor was protected by a timber pier that ran from east to west in a crescent shape.
hoys: Small coastal sailing ships which carried goods and occasional passengers.
diving bells: A newspaper reported that some anatomists had “provided a pair of diving bells, with which they hope to weigh hulk gigantic from its watery grave.”
Thou shalt not be afraid . . . : Psalm 91:5–7.
coffin plunge into the sea: Charles Byrne was supposedly buried at sea on June 5, 1783. The Edinburgh Evening Courant reported, “Yesterday morning the body of Byrne, the famous Irish Giant, who died a few days ago, was carried to Margate, in order to be thrown into the sea, agreeable to his own request, he having been apprehensive that the surgeons would anatomise him.”
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carefully scooped up: The dustpan was not invented until the mid-nineteenth century.
in his cups: A phrase dating back to the Bible, meaning “to be drunk.”
litmus paper: The lichen-based paper was brought into general use first in the 1600s by Robert Boyle (1627–1691).
a long, black hair: Dr. Edmond Locard (1877–1966) was a pioneer in forensic science. His exchange principle states that the culprit always leaves something behind.
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mangy mongrel: John Hunter performed a number of experiments on living dogs which involved shocking acts of cruelty. Three live sheep and an ass were also used to prove his theories.
measuring almost eight feet tall: While alive Byrne is said to have measured eight feet two inches. His skeleton measures seven feet and eight inches.
only my portrait: A portrait of Boruwlaski, painted in 1782 by Philip Reinagle, hung in Hunter’s museum for many years. It is now on display at the Hunterian Museum.
an exhibit for all eternity: Byrne’s skeleton remains on show at the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons, London.
decent people would mob you: It was not until 1787 that Hunter wrote to Sir Joseph Banks of the Royal Society to say: “I lately got a tall man. But at the time could make no particular observations. I hope next summer to be able to show him.”
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Bedlam: Short for Bethlem Royal Hospital, this was an asylum in London for the insane.
A READING GROUP GUIDE
THE DEAD
SHALL NOT REST
Tessa Harris
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
The suggested questions are included
to enhance your group’s reading of Tessa Harris’s
The Dead Shall Not Rest.
Discussion Questions
1. What are the parallels between the powerful physicians in the novel and the multinational drug companies of today?
2. How does Thomas develop as a character in this, the second book in the series?
3. Does the course of the War of Independence affect any attitudes toward Thomas in this book?
4. Anatomists in the eighteenth century found corpses so hard to come by that they were forced to turn to grave robbers for a regular supply. Nowadays, more people donate their bodies to science. Would you?
5. Should organ donation be made compulsory?
6. Freak shows have long been considered an affront to human dignity, but in an age with little social welfare, what was the alternative for the severely disabled?
7. Charles Byrne and Count Boruwlaski both have major disabilities but are treated in very different ways. Why is this so, and how would they be treated today?
8. How far do revelations about Lydia’s past go to explain her submissive character?
9. Was John Hunter a medical visionary or an evil obsessive?
10. Charles Byrne’s skeleton remains on display in the Hunterian Museum in London to this day. Should he be given a proper burial?