Many theories exists as to what these dolls represented but the one that captured the imagination was their coincidental link to the 17 victims of William Burke & William Hare; The BODY SNATCHERS. The story of Burke & Hare is fascinating in itself for many reasons, though motivated by greed on the part of the perpetrators, the purpose of the murders and the resulting bodies created a scandal that both shocked the polite society of Edinburgh but at the same time contributed to the city's standing as a place of intellectual advancement in the development of modern medicine. We go back to the early 1800s - great advances take place in science and medicine is no exception - however research into anatomy is made difficult as the supply of fresh cadavers on which to experiment are hard to come by. Generally only those executed for murder were given up for dissection and with such a voracious demand from the university there just were not enough murderers to go round, ironically an opportunity arose then for two of the best. Enter William Burke & William Hare, two Irish immigrants from Ulster who had come to Scotland to work on the Union Canal.
What do You think about Scottish Myths And Legends?
