176 HUMAN DISSECTION. ITS DRAMA AND STRUGGLE 



into his rooms; because of his standards, he unintentionally gave a 

 degree of facility to the disposal of the victims of Burke and Hare 

 However, in the final analysis, he was not acting contrary to th 

 law of the land. 



A few days after this report, March 17, 1829, Knox broke 

 his long silence by writing a letter to the editor of the Caledonian 

 Mercury, an Edinburgh newspaper, feeling that he owed an ex 

 planation to his friends and the medical profession. Parts of it 

 are hereby paraphrased. He explained that by the nature of his^ 

 work he ran the risk of being imposed upon by those who fur- 

 nished anatomical material. Every pedagogue in anatomy, he felt, 

 occasionally incurred odium from his supposed violations of the 

 law, without which anatomy could scarcely be practiced. In view 

 of the events, he had expected to become an object of popular 

 prejudice but he thought that extra means had been taken to in- 

 flame the public mind, without which the bias would have ulti- 

 mately passed away. In his mind, he had been exposed to a 

 misfortune which could have happened to anyone else in hi 

 situation. 



Knox went on to say that every effort had been employed to 

 convert his mischance into one of positive and intentional per 

 sonal guilt of the most dreadful character. Scarcely any individual 

 had ever been the object of more systematic or atrocious attacks 

 than he, and he knew from what quarter they emanated. The 

 public authorities had never charged him with any crime. I 

 respect to the formation of the committee, he claimed that hi 

 friends took matters into their own hands, without consultin 

 him. Further, he stated that some of its members were known 

 to him whereas others were not, that he had never met som 

 of them. In the absence of being in charge of the proceedings,: 

 he had given written permission that every person could say wha 

 he chose about him. He was sure that the extent to which thii 

 was taken advantage of would not soon be forgotten by those wh 

 witnessed it. 



Knox ended his letter by saying he could not judge whether 

 the views adopted by the committee were right or wrong. If they 

 were correct, he was willing to submit to the censure they had 

 inflicted and would hold it his duty to profit from it and exercise 



