CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Inquiry into Dr. Knox’s Relations with Burke and Hare—Report of Investigating Committee.
The violent outbreak of public feeling described in the last chapter against Dr. Knox seems at last to have moved him to take some means to clear himself from the imputations cast upon him for his connection with Burke and Hare, and to attempt to set himself right with the people, who were likely to proceed to even more extreme measures than any to which they had yet resorted. Accordingly, it was intimated in the Courant of Thursday, 12th February, that at the desire of Dr. Knox and his friends, ten gentlemen, with the Marquis of Queensberry at their head, had agreed to make a full and fair investigation into all Dr. Knox’s dealings with the West Port criminals, and make a report to the public. In the same newspaper on Monday, the 23rd of February, it was stated simply that the noble marquis had withdrawn from the committee of investigation. No reason for this withdrawal is given.
The committee of investigation certainly took plenty of time to inquire into the matter they had undertaken, and to prepare their report, for it was not until Saturday, the 21st of March, 1829, that the result of their labours was published in the Courant. This report, certainly by no means the least important document in connection with the West Port tragedies in their relationship to medical science, was as follows:—
“The committee who, at the request of Dr. Knox, undertook to investigate the truth or falsehood of the rumours in circulation regarding him, have gone into an extensive examination of evidence, in the course of which they have courted information from every quarter. They have been readily furnished with all which they required from Dr. Knox himself; and though they have failed in some attempts to procure evidence, they have in most quarters succeeded in obtaining it, and especially from those persons who have been represented to them as having spoken the most confidently in support of those rumours; and they have unanimously agreed on the following report:—
“1. The committee have seen no evidence that Dr. Knox or his assistants knew that murder was committed in procuring any of the subjects brought to his rooms, and the committee firmly believe that they did not.
“2. On the question whether any suspicion of murder at any time existed in Dr. Knox’s mind, the committee would observe that there were certainly several circumstances (already known to the public) regarding some of the subjects brought by Burke and Hare, which now that the truth has come out, appear calculated to excite their suspicion, particularly the very early period after death at which they were brought to the rooms, and the absence of external marks of disease, together with the opinion previously expressed by Dr. Knox, in common with most other anatomists, of the generally abandoned character of persons engaged in this traffic. But on the other hand, the committee, after most anxious enquiry, have found no evidence of their actually having excited it in the mind of Dr. Knox or of any other of the individuals who saw the bodies of these unfortunate persons prior to the apprehension of Burke.
“These bodies do not appear in any instance to have borne external marks by which it could have been known, whether they had died by violence, or suddenly from natural causes, or from disease of short duration; and the mode of protracted anatomical dissection practised in this and other similar establishments, is such as would have made it very difficult to ascertain the cause of death, even if special inquiry had been instituted with that intention.
“No evidence whatever has come before the committee that any suspicion of murder was expressed to Dr. Knox by any one either of his assistants, or of his very numerous class (amounting to upwards of 400 students), or other persons who were in the practice of frequently visiting his rooms; and there are several circumstances in his conduct, particularly the complete publicity with which his establishment was managed, and his anxiety to lay each subject before the students as soon as possible after its reception, which seem to the committee to indicate that he had no suspicion of the atrocious means by which they had been procured.