Short answers, pulled from the story.
An autopsy is a surgical procedure in which a pathologist dissects a corpse to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death. It may also be performed to diagnose disease, evaluate medical care, support legal investigations, or advance medical research and education.
The four main types are forensic (or medico-legal), clinical (or pathological), academic (or anatomical), and virtual. Forensic autopsies establish cause and manner of death in legally significant cases. Clinical autopsies diagnose disease or evaluate hospital care. Academic autopsies train medical students. Virtual autopsies use MRI and CT imaging rather than dissection.
A systematic review found that roughly 25% of autopsies reveal a major diagnostic error. A contemporary US institution can expect 8.4-24.4% of autopsies to detect major errors. One study of 694 diagnoses found that autopsies uncovered 171 missed diagnoses, including 21 cancers, 12 strokes, and 11 myocardial infarctions.
US autopsy rates fell from 17% in 1980 to 14% in 1985 and then to 11.5% in 1989, though figures vary notably from county to county. Hospital autopsy rates in most Western countries have declined every year since 1955.
Andreas Vesalius (c. 1514-1564) established modern anatomy through public dissections and his 1543 text De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septum. Giovanni Battista Morgagni (1682-1771), celebrated as the father of anatomical pathology, linked patient symptoms to post-mortem organ findings in his 1769 work De Sedibus et Causis Morborum per Anatomen Indagatis. Rudolf Virchow published standardized autopsy protocols in the 19th century; one still bears his name.
A virtual autopsy uses radiographic techniques, primarily MRI and CT scanning, to examine a deceased person without dissection. It can determine cause, nature, and manner of death and help identify the deceased, while also eliminating the examiner's exposure to biohazardous materials that may be present in the body.