This letter means what it says – “This is written in the blood of William Burke, who was hanged at Edinburgh on 28th of January 1829”.  The blood was “taken from his head” after execution.  Burke and Hare went on their notorious killing spree in 1827-8 to provide bodies for the booming Anatomy classes in Edinburgh.  After his death Burke was publicly dissected and his skeleton is one of the University’s museum highlights.  With this latest discovery of a scrap book containing original documents from the trial and execution, we now know we have a little of Burke’s blood too.