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Show 125 which mark the beginning of "that terrible work of dissecting. For a time I could not control my feelings, but after humbly imploring the blessing of my eternal Father I felt stronger and began my work, though my hands trembled so I could scarcely hold the scalpel. I don't think I am superstitious but yet it seems to me a terrible thing to mutilate the human body so." After a few more days of pursuing this activity, she admits that the "horrifying dread" which she felt at first is "wearing off. All disagreeable sensations are lost in wonder and admiration. Most truly "Man is the greatest work of God." Every bone, muscle, tendon, vein, artery and nerve seem to me to bear the impress of divine intelligence." 24 Today's reader, too, can be lost in wonder and admiration that this little wisp of a woman, out of the loneliness and fatigue of that time in her life, yet took the time to write so wondrously well of her reactions to a whole world of new experience. She has finally heard from Milford and is overjoyed at the possibility that he might visit her in the summer, but dares not hope for the further joy of seeing her children from whom she has now been separated for three long months. She graphically describes some early-morning work in the dissecting room. Rose early. Went to the College to work in the dissecting room as soon as it was light enough to see. All was still and quiet. I was the only occupant of that long cold hall save the four stiffened corpses stretched upon the marble tables upon all sides of me. Oh what thoughts chased each other rapidly through my brain, wondering who it was that once dwelt in these now vacant tenements. I asked myself, do their spirits still hover near? And again, who are their friends and how would they feel did they know their loved ones had come to such an end. But thanks to the |
