1 Until the Renaissance, understanding of human anatomy was based on the dissection of animals, with human autopsies considered an affront in virtually all cultures.
2 Italy’s University of Bologna became the first institution to use forensic autopsies, approving them in the 14th century to settle legal questions about cause of death.
3 The Catholic Church ordered an autopsy on conjoined infant twins Joana and Melchiora Ballestero in Hispaniola in 1533 [pdf] to determine if they shared a soul. There were two distinct hearts, and hence two souls, based on the ancient Greek philosophy of Empedocles, who believed the soul resided in the heart. The twins’ father, who had grudgingly paid for two baptisms, may have wished for a different outcome.
4 Eighteenth-century autopsist Giovanni Battista Morgagni introduced the idea of matching autopsy observations to pre-death clinical symptoms, so that autopsies could inform not just anatomy but also diagnosis and ...
