In the three hundred years following the renaissance of anatomy exemplified by Vesalius’ The Structure of the Human Body in 1543, surgery began its long journey to its current scientific level. This was the period when invasive surgery was limited; before anaesthesia and antisepsis. Nevertheless, surgeons spent a considerable part of their training in the dissecting room and were well acquainted with the anatomy of the human body. The Monro Collection in Dunedin, being essentially the library of three successive Monro Professors of Anatomy at Edinburgh during the Georgian period from 1720 to 1846, gives an intriguing insight to sources of that anatomical knowledge.