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nUp the close and down the stair,
nBut and ben with Burke and Hare.
nBurke’s the butcher, Hare’s the thief,
nKnox, the boy who buys the beef.n
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nContemporary Rhyme
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n(‘But and ben‘ means ‘out and about‘)
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n And what of Dr Knox? RobertnKnox was born on September 4th 1791, the eighth of nine children,nand was called ‘the darling boy of the family.’ A particularly virulentnattack of smallpox in his youth had left him blind in his left eye, which wasnsaid to resemble a grape in appearance. In 1810, he joined the Edinburghnmedical school, where he failed his anatomy examinations on the first sitting.nHe joined the extramural classes of John Barclay, the foremost anatomist of thenday, worked hard and passed on his second attempt.
n And what of Dr Knox? RobertnKnox was born on September 4th 1791, the eighth of nine children,nand was called ‘the darling boy of the family.’ A particularly virulentnattack of smallpox in his youth had left him blind in his left eye, which wasnsaid to resemble a grape in appearance. In 1810, he joined the Edinburghnmedical school, where he failed his anatomy examinations on the first sitting.nHe joined the extramural classes of John Barclay, the foremost anatomist of thenday, worked hard and passed on his second attempt.
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| Dr Robert Knox |
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nAfter graduating as a doctornin 1814, he worked as an assistant Army surgeon, and treated soldiers woundednat the Battle of Waterloo, which impressed on him the need for thoroughnanatomical knowledge in surgery. After a tour of duty in South Africa, Knoxnreturned to Edinburgh, where he was elected to the Royal Society of Edinburghnin 1823. Soon after, he proposed a Museum of Comparative Anatomy to the RoyalnCollege of Surgeons of Edinburgh, which was accepted and Knox became the firstnconservator.
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| Barclay’s Anatomy School |
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nIn 1826, he took a position as lecturing anatomist at Barclay’snanatomy school, in Surgeon’s Square, and ran private classes in opposition tonthose offered at the Royal College; the flamboyant Knox attracted many morenstudents than all the other anatomists working in Edinburgh at the time (andnso, consequently, he needed more ‘subjects’ than his rivals). This led to muchnprofessional jealousy, a situation not helped by Knox’s personality, as he wasnvain, opinionated and possessed of an enormous ego. Knox did not only notnsuffer fools gladly, he took pains to actively seek them out, publiclynhumiliate them and with sneering relish, go on to exacerbate the damage to rawnwounds he had opened by his razor-sharp tongue. Knox was, in Knox’s opinion,nGod’s own gift to medicine, and he revealed his brilliance to the waiting worldnwith an evangelical zeal.
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| Dr Robert Knox |
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nThe ordinary folk of Edinburgh, however, begged thisnprodigy’s pardon to differ and on Thursday February 12th 1829, anprocession assembled in the streets of the capital and began an organised marchntowards the Old Town, bearing before them the effigy of a certain Edinburghnanatomist; on the back of this figure was a label bearing the inscription ‘Knox,nthe associate of the infamous Hare.’ As they approached Newington (the areanwhere Knox lived), their numbers began to swell further, and they turnedntowards his house, where the effigy was first hanged from the arm of anlamppost, then burned, then ripped apart by the assembled thousands. All thisnwas done in a playful spirit to begin with, but now the jeers and cries fornvengeance multiplied and crowds of boys began to stone Knox’s house until theynwas not an unbroken window to be seen.
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| Robert Knox – Man, His Structure and Physiology |
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nThe horseplay descended into outrightnviolence, so the militia were called out and, with the best efforts of the citynwatchmen, attempts were made to suppress the tumult. The mob fragmented and rannriot throughout the town, breaking windows wherever they went, especiallynaround the College, West Port and Surgeon’s Square; but as night fell, thenmomentum began to wane, and Edinburgh returned to normality.
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| Surgeon’s Square – Edinburgh |
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nTwenty-threenrioters had been arrested and were issued with fines ranging from five to fortynshillings, but a public whip-round quickly covered those amounts and further autos-de-fenwere planned, with some talk of gunpowder mentioned along the way.
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| Cropping a Nox-i-ous plant |
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nIn annattempt to calm the whole situation down, Knox asked for an investigation intonhis dealings with, and relationship to, the West Port murderers; the committeenof ten good men and true presented its findings on March 21st 1829nin Courant newspaper. Knox and his staff had, they found, no knowledgenthat subjects brought to his rooms were the victims of murder. The subjectsnshowed no marks of violence on them, and Knox and his assistants had no reasonnto suspect that they were any different to subjects brought to them from othernsources. Dr Knox had made it known that he would purchase subjects fornanatomical research from the relatives or connections of deceased persons ofnthe lowest ranks of society.
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| Plate from Knox – Man, His Structure and Physiology |
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nConsequently, Dr Knox had been lax in ascertainingnthe source of his subjects, and had allowed his assistants and door-keeper andegree of latitude in the acquisition of them that was not sufficiently robust.nToo many enquiries may have diverted or diminished the supply of subjects and,nthe committee wrote,
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n“…the notoriously badncharacter of persons who generally engage in such traffic, in addition to thennovelty and particular nature of the system, on which these men professed to benacting, undoubtedly demanded greater vigilance.”n
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nIn effect, Knox had turned anblind eye to what had been going on, and had preferred not to ask where thenbodies were coming from. If he was guilty at all, he was guilty of sins ofnomission. Paterson, Knox’s door-keeper and porter, said it best when he opinednthat he was being made the,
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n“…scape-goat for anpersonage in higher life.”n
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nWilliam Burke had added anshort paragraph exonerating Knox to the confession he had given to SheriffnTait, which read,
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n“Burkndeaclars that Docter Knox never incoureged him, nither taught or ineoreged himnto murder any person, nether any of his asistents, that worthy gentleman Mr.nFergeson was the only man that ever mentioned any thing about the bodies. Heninquired where we got that yong woman Paterson.”n
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n(Sined)
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nWILLIAM BURK, prisner.
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nCondemned Cell, January 21,n1829.
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| Burke’s additional paragraph exonerating Knox |
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nBut the damage to Knox’snreputation had been done. In 1831, the Royal Society saw to it that he wasnreplaced as the curator of their Anatomy museum. His own anatomy classes driednup when Edinburgh University made their own anatomy classes compulsory for allnmedical students. He did himself no favours when he applied for the vacantnposition of Chair of Physiology at Edinburgh University in 1841, and innaddition to the application, he included a intemperate letter that attacked thenentire Edinburgh medical establishment in a tone and with language dripping innbile, vituperation and loathing. He attacked his rivals,
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n“… their repeated andnextra-ordinary failures, their bolstered up reputations, their total want ofnall originality, their unpopularity with the student or the taught; theirnpowers of mystifying the plainest facts,”n
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nthe renumeration offered fornthe position,
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n“… fallen much below thenincome of a steady-going retail grocery or bakery,”n
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nand the policies of the verynUniversity to which he was applying for a post,
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n“… the overloading of thencurriculum, the absence from the University of all men of originality and ofnEuropean reputation, and the baneful effects of a monopoly exercised by thenUniversity, whose sure result, like all other monopolies, is first to ruinnitself and afterwards its neighbours.”n
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nUnsurprisingly, he was notnoffered the Chair. Also in 1841, his wife and one of his six children died, sonhe left the remaining five in the care of a nephew and moved to London. Hencould not find a position as a surgeon, so took to writing, on all manner ofnsubjects, from physiology to fishing. In 1856, he became the pathologicalnanatomist at the Free Cancer Hospital at Brompton and worked there until hendied, six years later, in 1862.
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| Dr Robert Knox – Fish and Fishing – 1854 |
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nMaybe his legacy can be summed up in thenfollowing anecdote;
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nOne day, Knox was walking in the Edinburgh meadows with hisnfriend Dr Adams, and the conversation turned to ‘outward form’ and itsnrelation to ‘inward qualities’, and as an illustration of a point he wasnmaking, Knox turned to a little girl, who was gathering flowers nearby. Thenchild was about six years old, and of such outward natural beauty that Knox wasncertain this was the result of inner intelligence. His suspicions were provennin the playful conversation that followed, or so he thought, until he gave theninnocent a penny, adding jocularly,
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n“Now, my dear, you and Inwill be friends. Would you come and live with me if you got a whole penny everynday?”n
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nThe little girl had nonsecond thoughts.
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n“Oh no,” she said,n“ You would, maybe, sell me to Dr Knox.”n
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| Robert Knox – memorial stone |
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nOut of the mouths of babesnand infants …
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