Autopsy
medical examination of a corpse
An autopsy (also referred to as post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death; or the exam may be performed to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present for research or educational purposes. The term necropsy is generally used for non-human animals.
Autopsies are usually performed by a specialized medical doctor called a pathologist. Only a small portion of deaths require an autopsy to be performed, under certain circumstances. In most cases, a medical examiner or coroner can determine the cause of death.
Autopsies may be performed for legal, medical, educational, or research purposes. Forensic autopsies are used to establish the cause and manner of death and may also help identify the deceased, while clinical autopsies investigate disease and clarify or confirm diagnoses made before death. Academic autopsies are conducted for anatomical study, and some examinations use medical imaging rather than dissection.
Etymology
Autopsy
The term "autopsy" derives from the Ancient Greek αὐτοψία autopsia, "to see for oneself", derived from αὐτός (autos, "oneself") and ὄψις (opsis, "sight, view"). The word has been in use since around the 17th century.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Autopsy” as medical examination of a corpse. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as medical examination of a corpse. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q41482. The Library of Congress control number is sh85010461. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Autopsy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.