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,
Dissection criminals for educational purposes in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. Mondino de Luzzi carried out the first recorded public dissection around 1315. At this time, autopsies were carried out by a team consisting of a Lector, who lectured, the Sector, who did the dissection, and the Ostensor who pointed to features of interest. The Italian Galeazzo di Santa Sofia made the first public dissection north of the Alps in Vienna in 1404. Vesalius in the 16th century carried out numerous dissections in his extensive anatomical investigations. He was attacked frequently for his disagreement with Galen's opinions on human