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1761 BCE
The Autopsy Came of Age
The autopsy came of age with Giovanni Morgagni, the father of modern pathology, who in 1761 described what could be seen in the body with the naked eye. In his voluminous work On the Seats and Causes of Diseases as Investigated by Anatomy, he compared the symptoms and observations in some 700 patients with the anatomical findings upon examining their bodies. Thus, in Morgagni’s work the study of the patient replaced the study of books and comparison of commentaries. -
1302 BCE
The First Legal Autopsy
The first forensic or legal autopsy, wherein the death was investigated to determine presence of “fault,” is said to have been one requested by a magistrate in Bologna in 1302. Antonio Benivieni, a 15th-century Florentine physician, carried out 15 autopsies explicitly to determine the “cause of death” and significantly correlated some of his findings with prior symptoms in the deceased. -
300 BCE
The first real autopsy
The first real dissections for the study of disease were carried out about 300 BCE by the Alexandrian physicians Herophilus and Erasistratus, but it was the Greek physician Galen of Pergamum in the late 2nd century ce who was the first to correlate the patient’s symptoms (complaints) and signs (what can be seen and felt) with what was found upon examining the “affected part of the deceased.” This was a significant advance that eventually led to the autopsy. -
Apr 11, 1131
Ibn Zuhr
presented a accurate description of esophageal and stomach cancers through autopsies -
Jan 11, 1200
Europeans preserve bodies to make autopsies easier
Autopsies were done is Europe regularly that they started to preserve bodies better -
Marie F.X Bichat
stressed the importance of the general system and tissues in determining the cause of death. -
Humoral Theory
Karl von Rokitansky of Vienna (1804–78), the gross (naked eye) autopsy reached its apogee. Rokitansky utilized the microscope very little and was limited by his own humoral theory. -
Rudolph Virchow
Rudolph Virchow (1821-1902), Virchow advanced the doctrine which held that cellular pathology was the basis of disease, finally laying to rest the humoural theory of Hippocrates and Galen. In many ways, Virchow could be considered the first molecular biologist. Under Virchow, Berlin replaced Vienna as the premier center of medical education. -
Abraham Flexner
n 1910, Abraham Flexner reported the sorry state of medical education in the U. S. at that time. The Cabot report issued from the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1920, based on approximately 3000 autopsies performed, revealed astonishing diagnostic inaccuracies on the part of clinicians. Resulting medical reforms included the placement of autopsy pathology as a central, integral component of medical education. -
The Decline of Autopsy
Beginning in the 1950s, hospital autopsy rates started falling from an average of around 50% of all deaths to 10% in the late 1990s. Currently, the rates are even lower at non-academic hospitals. In 1970, the Joint Commission for Accreditation of Hospitals dropped the requirement that a hospital needed an autopsy rate of 20% to be accredited.
