The court of Cacus, or, the story of Burke and Hare / by Alexander Leighton.

  • Leighton, Alexander, 1800-1874.
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The court of Cacus, or, the story of Burke and Hare / by Alexander Leighton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    33/334 (page 17)
    surgeons of that institution; and great as he was in his profession, it is certain that he wanted that simplicity and dignity of character necessary to secure to him re- spect in proportion to the admiration due to his powers. But Knox was a man of a far more complex organisation, if it was indeed possible to analyse him. A despair to the physiognomist who contemplated his rough irregular countenance, with a blind eye resembling a grape, he was not less a difficulty to the psychologist. There seemed to be no principle whereby you could think of binding him down to a line of duty, and a universal sneer, not limited to mundane powers, formed the contrast to an imputed self-perfection, not without the evidence of very great scientific accomplishments. Even before he took up Bar- clay's class he was damaged by a story which went the round of the public, and was brought up against him at the time of his great occultation. On returning from the Cape, where he had been at- tached as surgeon to a regiment, he was one day met by his old teacher, Professor Jameson, who, after a kindly recognition in his own simple way, inquired what had been his pursuits when abroad. Why, replied Knox, with one of these expressions of an almost unreadable face—something between a leer and overdone sincerity— why, I was busy in your way,—keen in the study of natural history. No place in the world excels the Cape for curious objects in that department: