Robert Knox, Scottish Anatomist
Knox standing at table, gesturing with left hand while lecturing. Robert Knox (1791-1862) was a Scottish surgeon, anatomist and zoologist. He was the most popular lecturer in anatomy in Edinburgh before his involvement in the Burke and Hare body-snatching case. The Burke and Hare murders (West Port murders, 1827-1828) were serial murders attributed to Irish immigrants William Burke and William Hare, who sold the corpses of their 17 victims to provide material for dissection to Knox, who was giving private anatomy lecturers to students from Edinburgh Medical College. Harried by city elders and with fewer and fewer students Knox left for London in 1842 after the death of his wife. He found it impossible to get a post as a surgeon, and from then until 1856 he worked on medical journalism, lectures, and various publications. In 1856 he became the pathological anatomist to the Free Cancer Hospital, London. He worked there for the next six years until his death in 1862. He was 71 years old. Knox's ideas on anthropology and ethnology are now considered racist, notably his view that Anglo-Saxons are innately superior to other peoples.
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