548 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ed enlargcmeut of his classes, which sometimes rose to more than 

 five huudred students ; and with his thorough-going views of the 

 importance of actual dissection to the well-prepared physician,- the 

 demands of his establishment for subjects were necessarily large. 

 These he had, of course, to meet in various ways. The home supply 

 of bodies being insufficient, he made arrangements with distant places 

 in England and Ireland to have subjects sent to Edinburgh. He was 

 often compelled to pay so high for cadavers that it consumed the prof- 

 its of his teaching, and in one session he lost nearly $4,000 from this 

 cause alone. An enthvisiast himself, and with an enthusiastic class, he 

 could not endure to see the bare dissecting-tables, or to hear the im- 

 portunate solicitations of his students seeking for professional oppor- 

 tunities that were denied them away from a medical school. Not 

 infrequently the professors of medical colleges have joined the resur- 

 rectionists in their midnight adventures, or have pursued them alone j 

 and many thrilling stories are recorded of their nocturnal exploits in 

 getting possession of subjects which ofiered special interest to the 

 anatomists. But Dr. Knox never indulged in these practices. He 

 despised the resurrectionists whom he was compelled to use, and did 

 his best to get a change of legislation by which anatomy might be 

 prosecuted in a legal and legitimate way. Failing to s'ecure this, 

 he had to resort to the usual expedients for facilitating anatomical 

 study expedients as old as medical science. 



On the 29th of November, 1827, an old man by the name of 

 Donald died in West Port, one of the purlieus of Edinburgh. He 

 lodged with an Irishman named William Hare, and died owing him 

 four pounds. His creditor saw but one way of reimbursing him- 

 self, and that was by disposing of the old man's body to the doc- 

 tors. Hare found a ready accomplice in William Burke, another Irish- 

 man, and also one of his lodgers. The body was removed from the 

 coffin, and a bag of tanner's bark substituted for it. The lid was 

 screwed down and the little funeral went off as usual. The same 

 evening. Hare and Burke stealthily rejiaired to the university, and, 

 meeting a student in the yard, asked for the rooms of Dr. Monroe, the 

 Professor of Anatomy. The student happened to be a j^upil of Knox's, 

 and, upon discovering their errand, he advised them to try Knox's 

 place in Surgeons' Square. There they sold the body for 7 10s., a 

 large sum for them, and very easily obtained. They had not courage . 

 to go into the regular business of body-stealing ; and so Hare, the 

 vilest of the two, suggested a fresh stroke of business, which was to 

 inveigle the old and infirm into his quarters and " do for them." 

 Hare started in search of a victim ; and, prowling through the slums, 

 met an old woman half drunk, and asked her to his house. He gave 

 her whiskey until she became comatose, and then with Burke's assist- 

 ance strangled her. The body brought 10. 



