| Description | Copy letter from the Licensed Teachers of Anatomy in Scotland to Walter E. Elliot, M.P., Secretary of State for Scotland, asking him to consider '... the long continued and increasing inadequacy of the supply of anatomical material in Scotland', 4 February 1937. Mentions inadequacy of recent arrangements permitting diversion of subjects from Cumberland to Scotland; further reductions in unclaimed bodies resulting from the Health Insurance and Unemployment Insurance Acts; traditionally higher ratio of medical students to total population in Scotland as to England and ensuing difficulties of supply that this presents. Asks whether administration of the Anatomy Act might be transferred from the Home Office to the Ministry of Health, as had recently occurred in England, with administration of the Anatomy Act in Scotland brought directly under control of the Scottish Department of Health and the Department being made responsible for obtaining an adequate supply of bodies for the Scottish Medical Schools '... by some new method of systematic approach to the legal guardians of unclaimed bodies.'
'Memorandum on Anatomical Supply Problem', outlining the proposals described in above letter (4 February 1937) in greater detail, including background to the changes proposed and the success that they have had in England, n.d.
Copy of Walter E. Elliot's response to above letter (4 February 1937), addressed to professor D.M. Blair, University of Glasgow, 30 April 1938, acknowledging points raised, but refraining from making suggested changes to administration of the Anatomy Act; stating that primary responsibility for securing bodies rests properly upon the School authorities and the Inspector of Anatomy, with support from the General Inspectors of the Department of Health.
Copy letter from the Licensed Teachers of Anatomy in Scotland to John Colville, Secretary of State for Scotland, responding to Walter E. Elliot's letter of 20 April 1938.
Letter from D.M. Blair, University of Glasgow to Robert Lockhart, University of Aberdeen, 25 January 1939, enclosing letter sent to John Colville thanking him for their recent meeting and stressing that whilst a change in the Scottish administrative procedures may not wholly solve the problem of supply, it would go some considerable way towards doing so.
Statistics showing supply of subjects to Glasgow Anatomical Institution 1928 - 1938 (numbers and source) and to Edinburgh University, 1832 - 1940 (numbers only, compared against the national average and student numbers).
Printed 'Note of the procedure to be followed in placing a body at the disposal of the Ministry of Health for Anatomical Examination', n.d. (see also MS U 1332/4/4/7).
Printed 'Directions for bequeathing a body for Anatomical Examination', n.d. |