I am trying to differentiate between an autopsy, which is a legal forensic procedure performed to determine the cause of death, and dissection, which is primarily a learning exercise for student medics. We know that many guillotined bodies were shipped to anatomical institutes for dissection after the beheading. This would not qualify as an autopsy. As I mentioned before, an autopsy is required by law in some countries following a judicial execution. For example, there was an autopsy done on Ted Bundy, electrocuted in Florida in 1989, as can be seen from this photograph. Notice the sutures in the back of the head and burn marks on the head from the electrode:Paul53 wrote:
The autopsy quarters were somewhere in the vincinity of the execution shed, but it is not clear from the text,where they were exactly.Same goes for the quarters of the Scharfrichter.As far as is clear from the text( but will come tothat later) from the side of the German Anatomical Institutions, there was a great interest on obtainig material from executed persons, because this tissue material was"" freshly cut out, from mainly young persons,who would never have ended up on a dissecting table normally""(Stieve)
So the medical influence in organizing these dissecting rooms was strong, and apparently,was not lost on the RJM.Safe to say that they were cutting out interesting material for their research,organs and the like.
http://www.justiceblind.com/death/ted-bundy-2.jpg