Letter to the Lord Advocate, disclosing the accomplices, secrets, and other facts relative to the late murders : with a correct account of the manner in which the anatomical schools are supplied with subjects / by the echo of Surgeons Square ...

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Paterson, David, active 1828-1830.

Contributor:

Rae, William, Sir, 1769-1842.

Menzies, Robert.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Knox, Robert, 1791-1862.

Knox, Robert.

Murder--Scotland--Edinburgh.

Murder.

Human dissection--Scotland--Edinburgh.

Human dissection.

Burke, William, 1792-1829.

Burke, William.

Hare, William, 1792?-1870?.

Hare, William.

Scotland--Edinburgh.

Penn Provenance:

Burr, Charles W. (Charles Walts), 1861- (bookplate) (donor)

Physical Description:

36 pages ; 18 cm

Manufacture:

Edinburgh : R. Menzies, printer.

Other Title:

Letter to the Lord Advocate

Edinburgh murders PU

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh : Sold at No. 132, High Street ..., 1829.

Summary:

In 1828, William Burke and William Hare murdered at least 15 innocent victims, including a 12-year-old boy, for the money paid for corpses by Dr. Robert Knox's school of anatomy. This pamphlet is attributed to David Paterson, who had worked as doorkeeper at Knox's school. Paterson addressed the pamphlet as an open letter to Sir William Rae, Lord Advocate, and recommended that a judicial enquiry be prosecuted into the role of Dr. Knox in the murders. In addition to evidence and testimony regarding the crimes, "the pamphlet affords a great deal of inside information about the running of a dissecting establishment at this period."--Cf. R. Richardson. Death, Dissection and the Destitute (University of Chicago Press, 2000), p. 135-137.

Notes:

Attributed to David Paterson.

Local Notes:

Penn Libraries copy presented by Charles W. Burr, M.D., and has his bookplate on the front paste-down endpaper.

OCLC:

30647184