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necropsy - Definition:
(Source: MedicineNet)
By the turn of the 20th century, prominent physicians such as Rudolf Virchow in Berlin, Karl Rokitansky in Vienna, and William Osler in Baltimore won popular support for the practice. They defended it as a tool of discovery, one that was needed to identify the cause of tuberculosis, reveal how to treat appendicitis, and establish the existence of Alzheimer disease. They showed that necropsies prevented errors -- that, without them, doctors could not know when their diagnoses were incorrect. Most deaths were a mystery then, and perhaps what clinched the argument was the notion that necropsies could provide families with answers -- give the story of a loved one's life a comprehensible ending. By the end of the Second World War, the necropsy was firmly established as a routine part of death in North America and Europe.
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