Anne Green

From Cognitive Neuroscience (pg.1):

On December 14, 1650, Anne Green walked to the gallows in the courtyard of the city of Oxford, England. She was to be executed for murdering her newborn child (a crime she did not commit). As she faced certain death, it must have been the furthest thought from her mind that she was about to play a role in the founding of clinical neurology and neuroanatomy. She proclaimed her innocence to all who were watching, and after a psalm was read she was hanged. She hung there for a full half hour before she was taken down, pronounced dead, and placed in a coffin provided by Drs. Thomas Willis and William Petty. Willis and Petty were physicians at Oxford, and by order of Charles I, then king of England, they had permission to dissect, for medical research, the bodies of any criminals killed within 21 miles of Oxford.

An autopsy, however, was not what would take place on that fateful day. When Willis and Petty brought Anne's body back to their office, they heard a grumbling sound from her throat. They poured spirits in her mouth and rubbed a feather on her neck to make her cough. They rubbed her hands and feet for several minutes, bled 5 ounces of her blood, and swabbed her neck wounds with turpentine. They cared for her through the night, and the next morning she was able to drink fluids (in fact, she asked for a beer!). Five days later she was out of bed and able to eat normally.

Although the authorities wanted to hang Anne again, Willis and Petty fought in her defense. She had been accused of killing her baby, but the doctors argued that her baby had been stillborn and its death was not her fault. They also argued that her miraculous escape from death by execution was a divine providence proving her innocence. Their arguments prevailed. Anne was set free and later went on to marry and have three more children.

And Willis went on to become one of the greatest neuroanatomists of all time, and is considered the founder of clinical neuroscience.