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
Charles Knowlton electricity. Knowlton married Stuart’s daughter, Tabitha, and his condition was instantly cured. Knowlton studied medicine with several area doctors, and attended two terms of 14-week “medical lectures” at Dartmouth. He supplemented his education by digging up and dissecting corpses. Knowlton was awarded his M.D. in 1824, moved to Hawley, Massachusetts to begin his practice, and then served two months in the Worcester County jail for illegal dissection. While in jail, Knowlton formulated ideas that he eventually published as "Elements of Modern Materialism" in 1829. The book challenges the religious dualism of body and spirit, and Knowlton presents a psychological theory