Alexander Monro (tertius) Charles found the sight of surgery so upsetting that he stopped trying and turned his attention to natural history. During Monro's tenure as Professor of Anatomy, Edinburgh was rocked by scandal due to the notorious "Burke and Hare murders" in which healthy individuals were intentionally killed in order to supply cadavers for dissection by anatomy lecturers and their students. One of the murderers, William Burke, was hanged on 28 January 1829, after which he was famously dissected at the Edinburgh Medical College by Monro himself. In a letter, Monro dipped his quill pen into Burke's blood and wrote, "This is
Murder of Alexander Montgomerie high and low water marks. Murder at sea lay within the jurisdiction of the Lord High Admiral of Scotland. The earl that day was attended by several servants, namely John Milliken, John Hazel, John Cooper, James Hutcheson, and Alexander Bartleymore, all of whom gave evidence as witnesses. After due legal process, Mungo was sentenced to be taken to the tolbooth in Edinburgh, fed on bread and water only, and on 11 April 1770 taken to the Grassmarket where he was to be hanged between 2 and 4pm, after which his body was to be taken for dissection by Dr Alexander