Autopsy

An autopsy is an investigation of the cause or causes of death of a recently deceased individual by the examination of his or her cadaver. The latter's dissection is an essential part of a thoroughgoing autopsy. An autopsy can be performed to improve knowledge of the diagnosed cause of death. Equally, an autopsy can be performed to solve a medical mystery, when the cause of death defies diagnosis, or to solve a criminal mystery, when there is suspicion of foul play.

The extent to which autopsies are used in the Land of Mists to help solve crime is unclear. In Paridon autopsies performed by competent medical doctors appear to date from 749 BC with autopsies in the 6 years prior to that being performed by a mortician. In Darkon an autopsy was performed in 731 BC on Professor Daniel Fyrehaaven of the University of Il Aluk implicated his wife Julia in his death. The decision to perform the autopsy seemed, however, to have been taken by the unversity's biology and medicine departments themselves in light of the extraordinary circumstances of the professors death.