History of the autopsy 'Mortui vivos docent' - the dead teach the living.

"A disease which is new and obscure to you, Doctor, will be known only after death; and even then not without an autopsy will you examine it with exacting pains."

Boerhaave Hermann: Atrocis, nec Descripti Prius. Morbi historia. Translated in Bull Med Lib Assoc. 1955; 43:217

Autopsies are a source of valuable medical information that can improve health care for the living. There are very many diseases and conditions that have been discovered or greatly helped by the use of autopsies.

Greek physicians performed autopsies 2,500 years ago, but it wasn't until 1769 that the first comprehensive pathology text was written. The Italian physician Giovanni Batista Morgagni published his book'The seats and causes of diseases investigated by anatomy.'

Dissection of the dead human body has been central to medical education since the Renaissance. Anatomists of the past went to great lengths to obtain cadavers for student use.