Burke and Hare murders Burke and Hare murders The Burke and Hare murders were a series of 16 killings committed over a period of about ten months in 1828 in Edinburgh, Scotland. They were undertaken by William Burke and William Hare, who sold the corpses to Robert Knox for dissection at his anatomy lectures. Edinburgh was a leading European centre of anatomical study in the early 19th century, in a time when the demand for cadavers led to a shortfall in legal supply. Scottish law required that corpses used for medical research should only come from those who had died in prison, suicide victims,
Night Doctors were patrols called patterollers. After the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan continued the "Night Rider" tradition. It was finally taken up by the Night Doctors. Between the Civil War and the 1930s, labour agents were sent by Northern employers to recruit African Americans from the South. In addition to restrictive laws, Southern employers used rumour to intimidate the workforce into staying in the South. One of the most popular rumours concerned doctors roaming Northern streets nightly, killing African Americans for dissection purposes. White Southern employers would also maraude around black communities in white gowns, further spreading fear, anxiety and