Image: Surgeons Hall - geograph.org.uk - 1315862

Description: Built in 1832 to a design by William Playfair, this temple to medicine is one of the magnificent neo-classical buildings which earned Edinburgh the epithet, "Athens of the North". It houses an anatomy museum, among whose grislier exhibits is the skeleton of William Burke, displayed publicly as an explicit consequence of the sentence passed on him for his part in the so-called "West Port murders" of the early 1820s. His accomplice, William Hare, was persuaded to "turn King's evidence" in order to enable a successful prosecution. In return, Hare was freed while Burke went to the gallows. The two men, often described erroneously as body-snatchers, are known to have despatched at least sixteen victims to the afterlife in order to sell their dead bodies to the doctors for use as dissection material in lectures at the Edinburgh Medical School. The trade in corpses developed at a time when the growth of medical science meant that demand greatly outstripped supply. The murders and the strength of public indignation they aroused against the medical profession gave added impetus to the passing of the 1832 Anatomy Act which increased the legal supply of corpses to the medical schools.
Title: Surgeons Hall - geograph.org.uk - 1315862
Credit: From geograph.org.uk
Author: kim traynor
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