“This volume not only gives us unique insight into the society of early 19th century Scotland, the professional jealousies which existed at the time, and insight into the horrors of the surgery of warfare, but an insight into anatomy as the most important science supporting surgery just before the anaesthetic and antiseptic revolutions. It is entirely appropriate that more than 150 years after his death, anatomy is being reinvented as a study critically important to this generation of undergraduates and postgraduates. The volume tells us a great deal of his strengths and weaknesses, his refusal to conform when this would undermine his principles... Knox is now being restored as one of the most distinguished surgical anatomists in the history of Edinburgh surgery.” From the Foreword by The President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, Mr John Orr

“Medical historian Bates tells the story of Robert Knox, a polyglot and polymath considered one of the most outstanding anatomists of his time. His popularity as a dynamic anatomy lecturer and dissection demonstrator was known throughout Scotland. To fulfill the requirements for the surgeon's certificate, students were required to spend nine months on dissections. Conditions within laboratories were abominably foul, polluted with human remains and decay. Bodies were in short supply, and the murderous offerings of William Burke and William Hare put Robert Knox in the limelight and triggered the Anatomy Act to control acquisition of corpses. A stubborn iconoclast and prodigious investigator, Knox published nearly 100 papers on dissections. Of his many books, The Races of Man (1850) sought to explain how new species originated. His transcendental philosophy firmly advocated the linkage of man by structure and plan to all past and future life. He also published A Manual of Artistic Anatomy (1852) and a 600-page human anatomy work. Using primary sources, Bates knits together the life and times of a foremost 19th-century anatomist, allowing readers to comprehend the intrigues, politics, and personal quirks of key individuals, situations that remain remarkably similar today. Recommended.” Choice


Reviews from the British Society for the History of Medicine website (http://www.bshm.org.uk/books.htm)

“This very fully researched book by A. W. Bates give a very full description of the life of Robert Knox, and the times in which he lived. It has a comprehensive bibliography, a detailed index and is well annotated. It will be of immense use to the serious student of medical history.” Dr Ann Ferguson

“The book gives a detailed, thoughtful account of the life of Robert Knox from his birth in 1791 until his death in 1862, a period in which new, radical ideas were in the air. Anatomists interested in the higher, philosophical or transcendental level of their subject were grappling with the problem of the formation of new species independent of design or providence and from an early stage Knox was attracted to the subject. During his military service as a hospital assistant he was posted to Waterloo then the Cape of Good Hope where he developed a lifelong interest in comparative anatomy and the races of man. Later Knox studied anatomy in Paris where he was influenced by the theories of Geoffroy and Cuvier. In Edinburgh Knox began to teach and write and, eventually, took over an anatomy school. He was a brilliant lecturer. He taught the theory of a common vertebrate plan to medical students and interspersed his talk and demonstration of descriptive anatomy with a discussion of comparative anatomy, embryology and the transcendental (a kind of nature mysticism). Dissection was anticipated to give information on the origins and inter-relationships of animals and man, and interest became overwhelming. Much later Knox was portrayed as a doctor who whipped up such enthusiasm for anatomy that it became ‘a science run mad’. Certainly between 1826 and1834 the average number of students in Knox's class was 335; students paid an additional fee to be guaranteed ‘subjects’ to dissect. Inevitably Burke and Hare became a supplier of bodies to the school. The scandal of the Westport murders of 1828–9 and his delight in witty but scathing comments on the work of his contemporaries contributed to the failure of Knox to obtain a University appointment. The passing of the 1832 Anatomy Act and Knox's opposition to its implementation led eventually to the decline of his anatomy school. The centre of anatomy teaching moved from Edinburgh to London. Knox moved too and in London he turned to public lecturing and writing, including major works on the races of man, on art and anatomy, the history of transcendental anatomy and a manual of human anatomy.
… Throughout the book Alan Bates sets the scene of contemporary life. The reader is introduced to life in Edinburgh, to the leading anatomists of the day, French, Scottish and English, to current theories of the formation of new species and, finally, to Darwin. Although Knox, now near the end of his life, never accepted Darwin’s evolutionary theory he stopped writing about transcendental anatomy. A sense of the complex personality of Knox develops, ambitious, gifted and flawed – capable of deep love for his wife and children and zeal for his subject, anatomy, but also of hiding his ‘socially inferior’ family and of ignoring the mathematics of the supply of bodies. Alan Bates draws on numerous sources, 59 publications by Knox are included in the bibliography, in describing the contribution of Robert Knox to anatomy, both descriptive and philosophical, as his reputation as a leading surgical anatomist is being restored. Those interested in the history of human anatomy, in social history and in anthropology will find a wealth of information within.” Dr Barbara Hawgood

“The book documents Knox’s life from birth (1791) to death (1862) and explores his childhood, medical schooling, military service at Waterloo and in Africa, and then his time in Paris, Edinburgh and finally London. It offers a unique insight into Knox’s variable and shifting personality, including his appreciation of satirical humour, his somewhat non-conformist ways and his rather mixed relationships with colleagues. The text is comprehensively researched, sporting an extensive bibliography that greatly tempts the reader into further exploring the subject matter, whilst also being wonderfully informative about nineteenth-century society.
… For me, though, one of the most interesting aspects of the book was the various references to medical teaching and the discovery that Knox was at the forefront of promoting the importance of anatomy as a foundation of medical science – something I would have to agree with, but am inclined to think may have been overlooked in recent times.” From The Bulletin of The Royal College of Pathologists by Dr Kerryanne McEwan, Consultant Forensic Pathologist, Department of Forensic Medicine and Science, University of Glasgow