Anatomy teaching, dissection, and dignity of the dead

The Anatomy: A Matter of Death and Life exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh does an outstanding job to tell both stories. Curator Dr Ailsa Hutton with the skeleton of William Burke, on loan from the Anatomical Museum collection, University of Edinburgh. Dissection as punishment might have once been rationalised as an effective deterrent for crime, but it raises further questions about the historical conjunction of medicine, anatomical knowledge, and capital punishment.