The Anatomical Museum, The University of Edinburgh

About this audio guide

This guide to the Anatomical Museum at the University of Edinburgh tells the story of William Burke and William Hare, who over two years lured lodgers and drinkers back to a rented room, smothered them, and sold their bodies to the anatomist Robert Knox for his students. You'll hear how at least sixteen people died before the pair were caught, how Hare turned king's evidence, and what an Edinburgh judge added to Burke's own sentence on the day he was tried. The museum around you houses three centuries of the university's teaching collection.