Surgeons' Hall demand for bodies for anatomical dissection exceeded supply. Two Irishmen living in Edinburgh, William Burke and William Hare, resorted to murdering victims to supply Knox's anatomy school. Hare turned King's evidence and Burke was tried, found guilty of murder and hanged. His body was dissected by Alexander Monro tertius, the University professor of anatomy, and the museum has on display two items from that notorious episode – Burke's death mask and a pocket book made from his skin. Joseph Bell (1837–1911) was an Edinburgh surgeon who was president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh between 1887–89. He was
1788 Doctors' riot generations. Throughout the 1700s, British law considered dissection as a worse punishment than death. To discourage dueling, the Massachusetts General Court also imposed dissection as a threat by ruling that anyone who died as a result of a duel would be sentenced to post-mortem dissection and dismemberment. Dissection was seen as perhaps one of the worst things that could happen to a person after death. 1788 Doctors' riot The Doctors' riot was an incident that occurred in April 1788 in New York City, where the illegal procurement of corpses from the graves of slaves and poor whites resulted in a