My friend Dr Knox: a pupil writes about the anatomist

Thomas Giordani Wright, a medical apprentice in Newcastle upon Tyne, attended Dr Robert Knox's anatomy classes in Edinburgh between November 1825 and April 1826, only two years before Burke and Hare began murdering people and selling the bodies of their victims to Knox's anatomy school. In March 1829, soon after the crimes came to light and Burke had been found guilty of murder and executed, Wright commented on the case in his diary, describing the practices in the dissection rooms and giving his views on Robert Knox, the teacher who had become his friend.