Human Dissection: A Dead Person's Body

Human dissection is the process of cutting open and examining a dead person’s body. Dissection of human bodies during the renaissance is the most influential study of medical science and anatomy to this day. Medical students that are learning how to perform surgery benefit from the in depth experience that dissection offers. The human body never lies and cutting into them can tell someone a person’s cause of death. Many discoveries and corrections to theories happened when scientists and doctors looked inside cadavers. Dissection has become an integral part of the teaching and practicing of medicine, and it has greatly impacted the world of science.

Dissection of human corpses was never a popular way of learning about anatomy. It began in

They had to cut and inspect bodies from the morgue. The detailed examination gave students a look at what surgery is like. Practicing and learning on the dead bodies helped instill confidence in the them. “Gosling had spotted one student, sitting on a stool, turning white. He quickly intervened, and the student took off the rest of the afternoon. The next class the student was back at the table, successfully dissecting his cadaver.”(Bergeron 1) In order to improve practice is necessary. Dissection is part of the fundamental building blocks that build surgeons and the people who save our

Autopsies are performed in order to find out why. Medical examiners cut into the deceased and search every inch of their body in order to get the answers that they want. They take samples and are the detectives of anatomy.(Hopping 5) The human body can tell a person’s lifetime. “In just three days of dissecting, ‘Bob’ had yielded evidence of emphysema, triple bypass surgery and a pacemaker.”(Bergeron 1) When looking into these bodies you can learn so much. From the outside a person may seem strong and healthy, but when you look inside you can come across someone who has been suffering from illnesses.

Before humans were sliced into all of our beliefs about anatomy came from animals; nothing was able to be proven. Claudius Galen, a Greek doctor, believed that because pigs have five livers humans do too. Andreas Vesalius was the first to question Galen’s theory though. Vesalius knew that the only way to know how many livers a human has is to cut someone open and find out. (Vardo 65) When he looked into a cadaver it was discovered that there was only one liver; Galen’s theory was incorrect. (Gates 10) Not only did dissection correct the mistakes of our body structure, but many discoveries were made as