Autopsy Quotes (3 quotes)
A disease which 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. But rare are those among the extremely busy clinicians who are willing or capable of doing this correctly.
In Atrocis, nee Descipti Prius, Morbi Historia as translated in Bulletin of the Medical Library Association (1944), 43, 217.
The autopsy of a person who had died from phosphorus poisoning would reveal inflammation and haemorrhage in the stomach and bowel, the liver would show fatty changes and both it, and the kidneys would be enlarged, greasy and of a yellow colour. But the most convincing proof of death due to phosphorus exposure would be to turn off all the lights in the mortuary and see its tell-tale glow...
The 13th Element: The Sordid Tale of Murder, Fire and Phosphorus (U.S., 2000), 191. Also published in Great Britain as The Shocking History of Phosphorus (2000).
Those who have dissected or inspected many [bodies] have at least learnt to doubt; while others who are ignorant of anatomy and do not take the trouble to attend it are in no doubt at all.
Letter xvi, Art. 25, as translated by Benjamin Alexander. Cited in Edward W. Adams, 'Founders of Modern Medicine II: Giovanni Battista Morgagni', Medical Library and Historical Journal (1903), Vol. 1, 276.