AUTOPSY

Literally, personal observation or examination; ocular view. The term, however, is now applied, rather loosely, to a post-mortem investigation. A post-mortem may be performed with the object of endeavouring to ascertain the cause of death in a medico-legal inquiry, or in the furtherance of the study of pathology. It is also a preliminary to embalmment, and is sometimes had recourse to as a means of saving the child when a woman dies in full pregnancy. In France no post-mortem examination is permitted to take place until at least 24 hours after death, this delay being enforced as a safeguard against the po ibility of the body operated upon being still alive. In England no post-mortem can be made without the consent of the friends of the deceased, unle by warrant from a coroner; although in many public institutions this consent is dispensed with. Whenever, however, a prisoner dies in gaol an inquest and post-mortem are held on the body. An autopsy is to be discouraged in cases where a person has died from infectious disease; but should the law require it to be undertaken, disinfectants both during and after the operation should be liberally had recourse to.