HUMAN DISSECTION IN SCOTLAND-AD. 1500 TO 1958 171 



far as Dublin to make cadaver arrangements for the approaching 

 session in October, 1828. 



When the case of Burke and Hare was reviewed, the fact was 

 revealed that Knox saw these two individuals on just two occa- 

 sions during the delivery of the sixteen murdered bodies; the 

 others were received either by his student assistants, who were just 

 out of their teens, the janitor of his establishment or the porter. 

 In no case, did they find any suspicious marks upon them. Since 

 all cadavers were obtained surreptitiously by thieves and lawless 

 villains, there was little general questioning done; it was re- 

 garded as folly and impolite to pry into the matter too much, 

 according to Lonsdale. Newly dead corpses, obtained from other 

 sources than the grave, were not uncommon in the practical 

 rooms. The resurrectionists were always on the search for persons 

 dying without friends. On their side, too, was the fact that no 

 inquests by coroners were held in Scotland which precluded an 

 authoritative investigation of questionable cases. 



Not all influential men of medicine in those hectic days, came 

 to the defense and rescue of Knox and other members of the 

 anatomical profession, as did Lonsdale (1870). Sir Thomas Wak- 

 ley, in his capacity as editor of Lancet, wrote what can be called 

 diatribes against him and the contemporary teachers of anatomy. 

 He charged them all with being in commerce, that they were a 

 cold-blooded lot, showing a monstrous indifference and apathy 

 to the manner in which they obtained bodies; that they kept their 

 shambles open to resurrectionists and possibly murderers; that 

 they enjoyed a profitable monopoly, regulating their student fees 

 to the exorbitant demand of the dealers in bodies. The schools of 

 anatomy, as they were then run, he believed, constituted a public 

 nuisance, that dissection must either be completely suppressed or 

 encouraged, that the practice might be overrated in its importance 

 and that its chief claim to a place in the medical curriculum was 

 related to the operations performed by surgeons. He charged that 

 one teacher of anatomy took a burial ground for himself and 

 conducted a business from a small house adjoining his plot. He 

 jmade a profit in two ways: by charging handsomely for entering 

 bodies, then, later exhuming them and demanding as much as 

 8 to 1 2 guineas from his pupils. This practice led, in some schools. 



