An eye opener, circa 1829

Rico's friend Kelley, also a history junkie, forwards this:

Following a YouTube program (above) that mentioned Burke & Hare, the Scottish murderers who killed sixteen people to sell as corpses for medical anatomy classes, I looked them up on Wikipedia.
Burke was found guilty and hanged. Hare was acquitted and released. Here's an account of what became of Burke's body, in lieu of being exhibited in chains. He was to be dissected by the same doctor to whom they were selling their corpses. The Wikipedia article concludes:

During the dissection, which lasted for two hours, Professor Alexander Monro dipped his quill pen into Burke's blood and wrote "This is written with the blood of Wm Burke, who was hanged at Edinburgh. This blood was taken from his head." Following the dissection, the Edinburgh phrenologists were permitted to examine Burke's skull.

Burke's skeleton is now displayed in the Anatomy Museum of the Edinburgh Medical School. His death mask and a book, said to be made from his tanned skin, can be seen at Surgeons' Hall Museum. As Robert Knox was the first conservator of the museum, there are also specimens, instruments, and other artifacts relating to him and the period (the museum is open daily to the public). Following the execution and dissection, wallets supposedly made from Burke's skin were offered for sale on the streets of Edinburgh. A calling card case made from skin taken from the back of his left hand [see photo below] fetched £1050 at auction in 1988. It was sold by the family of Piercy Hughes, a descendant of one of the surgeons involved in the dissection, and bought by Robin Mitchell and Colin MacPhail of Edinburgh's Cadies & Witchery Tours company. Until 2013, the case was displayed at the Police Information Centre in Edinburgh's Royal Mile. It is now displayed in The Cadies & Witchery Tours shop in Edinburgh's West Bow.