Autopsy

Autopsy
A postmortem examination. Also called a necropsy. Autopsies have been done for more than 2,000 years but during most of this time they were rarely done, and then only for legal purposes. The Roman physician Antistius performed one of the earliest autopsies on record. In 44 B.C., he examined Julius Caesar and documented 23 wounds, including a final fatal stab to the chest. In 1410, the Catholic Church itself ordered an autopsy — on Pope Alexander V, to determine whether his successor had poisoned him. No evidence of this was found. By the turn of the 20th century, prominent physicians such as Rudolf Virchow in Berlin, Karl Rokitansky in Vienna, and William Osler in Baltimore won popular support for the practice. They defended it as a tool of discovery, one that was needed to identify the cause of tuberculosis, reveal how to treat appendicitis, and establish the existence of Alzheimer disease. They showed that autopsies prevented errors — that, without autopsies, doctors could not know when their diagnoses were incorrect. Most deaths were a mystery then, and perhaps what clinched the argument was the notion that autopsies could provide families with answers — give the story of a loved one's life a comprehensible ending. By the end of the Second World War, the autopsy was firmly established as a routine part of death in North America and Europe. For more information, see Autopsy (Postmortem Examination). And see "The Final Cut" by Atul Gawande in The New Yorker magazine of March 17, 2001.
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1. An examination of the organs of a dead body to determine the cause of death or to study the pathologic changes present. SYN: necropsy. 2. In the terminology of the ancient Greek school of empirics, the intentional reproduction of an effect, event, or circumstance that occurred in the course of a disease and observation of its influence in ameliorating or aggravating the patient's symptoms. SYN: postmortem examination. [G. autopsia, seeing with one's own eyes]
- verbal a. method of obtaining as much information as possible about a deceased person by asking questions of family and others who can describe the mode of death and circumstances preceding death; used especially in developing countries and in settings and situations in which postmortem pathological examination is not feasible.

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au·top·sy 'ȯ-.täp-sē, 'ȯt-əp- n, pl -sies an examination of the body after death usu. with such dissection as will expose the vital organs for determining the cause of death or the character and extent of changes produced by disease called also necropsy, postmortem, postmortem examination
autopsy vt, -sied; -sy·ing to perform an autopsy on

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n.
dissection and examination of a body after death in order to determine the cause of death or the presence of disease processes.

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au·top·sy (awґtop-se) [auto- + Gr. opsis view] the postmortem examination of a body, including the internal organs and structures after dissection, so as to determine the cause of death or the nature of pathological changes. Called also necropsy.

Medical dictionary. 2011.

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  • autopsy — au·top·sy / ȯ ˌtäp sē, təp / n pl sies: an examination of a body after death usu. involving dissection esp. to determine the cause of death – called also post mortem, post mortem examination; autopsy vt Merriam Webster’s Dictionary of Law.… …   Law dictionary

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  • Autopsy — Au top*sy, n. [Gr. ?, fr. ? seen by one s self; ? self + ? seen: cf. F. autopsie. See {Optic}, a.] 1. Personal observation or examination; seeing with one s own eyes; ocular view. [1913 Webster] By autopsy and experiment. Cudworth. [1913 Webster] …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

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  • autopsy — (n.) 1650s, an eye witnessing, from Mod.L. autopsia, from Gk. autopsia a seeing with one s own eyes, from autos self (see AUTO (Cf. auto )) + opsis a sight (see EYE (Cf. eye) (n.)). Sense of dissection of a body to determine cause of death is… …   Etymology dictionary

  • autopsy — [n] examination of dead body dissection, necropsy, pathological examination, postmortem; concepts 103,310 …   New thesaurus

  • autopsy — ► NOUN (pl. autopsies) ▪ an examination of a dead body to discover the cause of death or the extent of disease. ORIGIN Greek autopsia, from autopt s eyewitness …   English terms dictionary

  • autopsy — [ô′täp΄sē, ôt′əp sē] n. pl. autopsies [ML & Gr autopsia, a seeing with one s own eyes < Gr autos, self + opsis, a sight < ōps, EYE] 1. an examination and dissection of a dead body to discover the cause of death, damage done by disease,… …   English World dictionary

  • Autopsy — Post mortem redirects here. For other uses, see Post mortem (disambiguation). This article is about the medical procedure. For other uses, see Autopsy (disambiguation). Autopsy Intervention The …   Wikipedia

  • autopsy — autopsist, n. /aw top see, aw teuhp /, n., pl. autopsies, v., autopsied, autopsying. n. 1. inspection and dissection of a body after death, as for determination of the cause of death; postmortem examination. 2. an analysis of something after it… …   Universalium

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