What does the future hold?

Since ancient times the knowledge of the human body and physiologic theories were obtained secretly, against the laws of the Catholic Church, through exhumation followed by anatomic dissection of newly buried persons. From those times, the importance of post-mortem study for the advance of medical k...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Fernando Peixoto Ferraz de Campos
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: University of São Paulo 2012
Subjects:
R
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.4322/acr.%y.26080
https://doaj.org/article/ff984a0e841f4be68c4660bc91755592
Description
Summary:Since ancient times the knowledge of the human body and physiologic theories were obtained secretly, against the laws of the Catholic Church, through exhumation followed by anatomic dissection of newly buried persons. From those times, the importance of post-mortem study for the advance of medical knowledge was noted. In this context, the nineteenth century saw the heyday of the autopsy. Since then, autopsy has been responsible for the progression of clinical medicine, medical education, epidemiology, and public health. From the 1950s up until 1990, 87 diseases were identified by autopsy. The discovery of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in 2003 and the avian flu epidemic in 2006 were through autopsy as well.