Note 19 — Chapter XIV · ITALY. 1857–1879.

This refers to an afternoon party we gave to witness poor Mr. Bishop’s interesting thought-reading performances. He was wonderfully successful throughout, and the company, which consisted of about 30 clever men and women, were unanimous in applauding his art, of whatever nature it may have been. I may add that after my guests were departed, when I took out my cheque-book and begged to know his fee, Mr. Bishop positively refused to accept any remuneration whatever for the charming entertainment he had given us. The tragic circumstances of the death of this unhappy young man will be remembered. He either died, or fell into a deathlike trance, at a supper party in New York, in 1889; and within four hours of his real (or apparent) decease, three medical men who had been supping with him, dissected his brain. One doctor who conducted this autopsy alleged that Bishop had been extremely anxious that his brain should be examined post mortem, but his mother asserted on the contrary, that he had a peculiar horror of dissection, and had left directions that no post mortem should be held on his remains. It was also stated that he had a card in his pocket warning those who might find him at any time in a trance, to beware of burying him before signs of dissolution should be visible. In a leading article on the subject in the Liverpool Daily Post, May 21st, 1889, it is stated that by the laws of the United States “it is distinctly enacted that no dissection shall take place without the fiat of the coroner, or at the request of the relatives of the deceased; so that some explanation of the anxiety which induced so manifest a breach of both laws and custom is eminently desirable. A second examination of the body at the instance of the coroner, has revealed the fact that all the organs were in a healthy state, and that it was impossible to ascribe death to any specific cause or to say whether Mr. Bishop were alive or dead at the time of the first autopsy.” Both wife and mother believed he was “murdered;” and ordered that word to be engraved on his coffin. His mother had herself experienced a cataleptic trance of six days’ duration, during the whole of which she was fully conscious. The three doctors were proceeded against by her and the widow, and were put under bonds of £500 each; but, as the experts alleged that it was impossible to decide the cause of death, the case eventually dropped. Whether it were one of “Human Vivisection” or not, can never now be known. If the three physicians who performed the autopsy on Mr. Bishop did not commit a murder of appalling barbarity on the helpless companion of their supper-table, they certainly risked incurring that guilt with unparalleled levity and callousness.