"The chief subjects we wish to elucidate concern the brain and the nerves."

Even in the 19th century, conducting medical experiments on criminals was generally frowned upon. But not by everyone, as evidenced by an article from the October 21, 1886 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, which was originally published in the Chicago Journal. An excerpt:

“In a conversation that I had recently with a prominent Chicago physician, he was bemoaning the prejudice that existed against vivisection autopsies, and all the means by which the medical profession acquires its knowledge of the human body and its skill in relieving human suffering. ‘What we need now,’ he said, ‘is a legal enactment turning over criminals convicted of heinous capital offenses to the medical fraternity for experimentation on the vital forces. Of course I never expect to see this done. The sentimentalists would rather see a million good people languish and die for want of medical skill than to see one cutthroat like Frank Rand subjected to surgical operations which would prove fatal. The truth is that this would be less liable to the charge of inhumanity than the vivisection of the lower animals. It would pain me exceedingly to have a dog subjected to torture, because the dog is an innocent and affectionate animal, whereas some of the men we now hang deserve a worse fate. Then, too, we would not have to keep up the practice for years. If there were only a law turning over the worst capital criminals of the year 1886 to us for the purpose, the benefit to suffering humanity could not be estimated. The chief subjects we wish to elucidate concern the brain and the nerves.”