Medical Science – its wonders and deep disturbing secrets

Medicine is an art as well as a science.

In just the past few decades, incredible advancements in the treatment and healing of patients have occurred. Physicians possess incredible skills, use state of the art equipment, and now even robotics are used during some surgical procedures.

A far different story haunts medical science's past pages. Caring for the infirmed was gruesome by modern standards. What today is considered a minor ailment was often incapable of treatment, and worse, incurable. Countless people died due to the lack of knowledge and skills needed to save those succumbing to the ravages of infections and disease.

In the early 1800's, Edinburgh was considered the epicenter of medical science. From across Europe, students arrived in this Scottish city to hone their knowledge and earn the title of doctor. The town developed into  the epicenter for the study of human anatomy. But how was any of the basic anatomical knowledge obtained by those in Edinburgh's medical school, in a time before modern embalming and refrigeration? Read on and learn more of this macabre tale…..

During this period, cadavers were in short supply. The school in Edinburgh was allotted only five bodies a year to use in teaching its medical students human anatomy. Two men, Burke and Hare, fell in league with a physician named Robert Knox. At first, the duo only  exhumed graves of the recently dead. Unfortunately, they became caught up in their own greed and turned to murdering prostitutes and unsuspecting travelers to increase profits.

Unthinkable today, the heinous acts of these men led to a much greater understanding of human anatomy and the advancement of medical science. 

Click on the link above and see for yourself what fate awaited William Burke, William Hare, and Doctor Robert Knox.