authorities, by never charging mo with any offense, gave the only attestation they could that they had nothing to charge me with. But my friends interfered for me. Without consulting me, they directed an agent to institute the most rigid and unsparing examination into the facts. I was totally unacquainted with this gentleman; but I understood that, in naming Mr. Ellis, they named a person whose character is a sufficient pledge for the propriety of his proceedings.
"The result of his inquiries was laid before the Dean of Faculty and another counsel, who were asked what ought to be done. These gentlemen gave it as their opinion that the evidence was completely satisfactory, and that there was no want of actionable matter, but that there was one ground on which it was my duty to resist the temptation of going into a court of law. This was, that the disclosures of the most innocent proceedings even of the best-conducted dissecting-room must always shock the public, and be hurtful to science. But they recommended that a few persons of undoubted weight and character should be asked to investigate the matter, in order that, if I deserved it, an attestation might be given to me, which would be more satisfactory to my friends than any mere statements of mine could be expected to be.
"After a severe and laborious investigation of about six weeks, the result is contained in the following report, which was put into my hands last night....
"Candid men will judge of me according to the situation in which I was placed at the time, and not according to the wisdom which has unexpectedly been acquired since. This is the very first time that I have ever made any statement to the public in my own vindication, and it shall be the last. It would be unjust to the authors of the former calumnies to suppose that they would not renew them now. I can only assure them that, in so far as I am concerned, they will renew them in vain."
The report here referred to bore the names of Sir John Robinson, chairman; Mr. M. P. Brown, advocate; Prof. James Russell, Dr. Alison, Sir George Ballingall, Sir George Sinclair, Sir William Hamilton, and Mr. Thomas Allen, banker; and completely and absolutely exonerated Dr. Knox from the charges that had been made against him. The public advocate went to the bottom of the case, and declared that there was no ground of suspicion; and one of the ablest representatives of the British bar. Lord Cockburn, who had a personal knowledge of all the facts, wrote in the "Memorials of his Time" as follows: "All our anatomists incurred a most unjust and very alarming though not unnatural odium; Dr. Knox in particular, against whom not only the anger of the populace, but the condemnation of the more intelligent persons, was specially directed. But, tried in reference to the invariable and the necessary practice of the profession, our anatomists were spotlessly correct, and Knox the most correct of them all."
Dr. Knox was a man of pluck, and he went along about his business, paying little attention to the storm of abuse and vituperation that rained upon him. But the savage injustice of which he was a victim was, nevertheless, not without its effect. It clouded his prosperity, darkened his life, and gave a cynical turn to his disposition.
