Anatomy: A Love Story (The Anatomy Duology, #1)

by Dana Schwartz

However, illustrations are no replacement for the active, first-hand discovery of anatomy through dissection, and no prospective physician will ever hope to be a service to our profession without first effectuating at least a dozen bodies and studying their component parts.

stealing the bodies of innocents, subjects provided to my students at my anatomical school in Edinburgh are always the unfortunate men and women who suffer the hangman’s noose, whom British law dictates are inclined to provide one last service to their fellow countrymen as final penance. 1

The parts of Hawthornden that Hazel liked best were the library—with its mottled green wallpaper and leather books and fireplace lit every afternoon

and the balcony off her bedroom, from which she could look into the tree-lined creek below and see only nature for miles.

with ivy-covered stone walls that loomed over untamed Scottish woods and a thin stream that ran farther than Hazel had ever been able to follow.

The only remnants of the castle’s original structure were the gates, at the front of the drive, and a cold stone dungeon built into the side of the hill,

What were miracles, but science that man didn’t yet understand? And didn’t that make it all the more miraculous that the secrets of the universe were out there, codes one might decipher if smart enough, tenacious enough?

We men fear death,

Death! Gruesome and terrible! Inevitable and senseless! We dance towards her as we might a beautiful woman (Italians loved to talk about beautiful women) and Death waltzes back towards us, beckoning, always beckoning. Once the veil is pierced, we never return. But it is a new century, my friends.

And mankind will conquer the laws of nature!

—And then the frog moved.

The key was a conductor for electricity,

She had wept most days since the fever took George.

Within two days, the boils begin to burst, staining the back of the patient’s shirt with blood (hence the name “the Roman fever,” for the resemblance of several stab wounds to the back like Julius Caesar’s). Other symptoms include blackened gums, lethargy, decreased urination, and aches.

Though the survival rate is dismal, those who do prevail retain immunity. There is no known cure.

an advertisement for an anatomy demonstration by the famous Dr. Beecham III,

LIVE SUBJECT! FREE ANATOMY DEMONSTRATION! SEE DOCTOR BEECHAM, HEAD OF SURGERY, EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY, PERFORM DISSECTION AND AMPUTATION USING HIS BRAND NEW TECHNIQUE. THOSE INTERESTED MAY ENQUIRE WITH REGARD TO THE DOCTOR’S ANATOMY SEMINAR. 8 O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING ROYAL EDINBURGH ANATOMISTS’ SOCIETY

Beecham’s stated purpose was the quest for eternal life. Beecham succumbed to poisoning from the effects of experimental consumption of gold, mercury, and lead in high doses.

The physician works with his mind. The surgeon works with his hands, and his brute strength.

“In this bottle,” he said, “is the future of surgery. A chemical compound of my own devising. It’s true, what my grandfather wrote in his book, that sometimes a physician must act as apothecary, and in so doing, I have discovered something extraordinary. It is—gentlemen, if you’ll forgive me—nothing short of a miracle.”

“I have single-handedly devised the secret that will render all surgery painless.

“The future,” Beecham said, “is gas lamps.

wildflower-rot smell.

ethereum.

‘the Scotsman’s dodge.’”

wildflowers, and mold, and death.

probably couldn’t count to five if they started at four.

IT’S THE LESSON YOUNG GIRLS EVERYWHERE were taught their entire lives—don’t be seduced by the men you meet, protect your virtue—until, of course, their entire lives depended on seduction by the right man. It was an impossible situation, a trick of society as a whole: force women to live at the mercy of whichever man wants them but shame them for anything they might do to get a man to want them.

Be patient, be silent, be beautiful and untouched as an orchid, and then and only then will your reward come: a bell jar to keep you safe.

The Roman fever ravaged Edinburgh two years ago, the summer of 1815, with over two thousand dead.

And it’s four, sir. The right ventricle, left ventricle, right atrium, and left atrium.”

Name the four valves of the heart.”

“The aortic valve, sir. The tricuspid valve. The pulmonary valve and—and the bicuspid valve.”

an alien thing painted in blacks and purples. It was oddly shaped, nonsymmetrical, fatter on one end than the other, coated on one half with a thick beige plaque.

Look, quick, come see: a woman who fancies reading about blood and gore!

Being a woman had closed many doors to Hazel Sinnett, but it had also revealed to her a valuable tool in her arsenal: women were almost entirely overlooked as people, which gave her the power of invisibility. People saw women, they saw the dresses women wore on public walks through the park, and the gloved hands they rested on their suitors’ elbows at the theater, but women were never threats. They were never challenges worthy of meaningful consideration.

no, no. Not upset. Interested, really.” “Interested?” “In you. As a specimen. It’s very rare to see a woman with your interest in the natural sciences. And even rarer, I must say, to see one with your aptitude. Tell me—were you always interested in anatomy?”

“I swear it was with no malice or intent to mock you. I just couldn’t think of another way. Please, if you let me continue in your classes, I will work harder than any student you have ever taught, and learn more diligently. If you could just speak to Dr. Straine, or convince him to allow me to continue my studies … I will be discreet, if you require, and I will find a way to work as a physician somehow. I don’t know how yet, but I will. Your teachings will not go to waste. I swear, I will pass the Physician’s Examination somehow, and I will be a credit to your course, I know I will be.”

YESSS HAZLE SISTER ! Manifest ✨

“What if I sit the Physician’s Examination? Even without the lectures. What if I’m allowed to sit the Physician’s Examination anyway?”

“exactly. An experiment. To test my abilities. And if I pass, I receive my qualifications, and you permit women to enroll in your lecture from here on out. Yours and Straine’s.”

And, in the unlikely event that you do pass, I will also offer you an apprenticeship—with me—at the university hospital, where as you must know, I serve as Chief of Surgery.

SCREAMING !!! Yaaaaasss bitch !

“Morte magis metuenda senectus. Do you know Latin, Miss Sinnett?” “Only some, I’m sorry to say. Is it—er—something like, ‘We fear old age—’?” “‘Old age should rather be feared than death.’”

wet-cupping operation. The girl had gone into a hospital for the poor, and they had treated her by sucking blood from the back of her skull with knives and hot glasses. Hazel had never seen it done, but she had read about it.

and breathe in the metallic smell of lightning that clung to her, a peculiar smell mixed with bergamot and castile soap.

Even sinners deserved a headstone.

“You’re engaged?” Of course she was engaged, Jack thought, women like her were always engaged. They were practically bred for it. Sows groomed for the slaughter.

“Betelgeuse,”

“One of the brightest stars in the night sky visible to the naked eye, they say.”

“Dead bodies are never going to bite you. They’re never going to do anything to you. It’s living things that hurt you.”

We’re rotting bags of meat is all, and we start going bad pretty quick.