5.00pm
LONDON - A German doctor, Professor Gunther von Hagens, has performed the first public autopsy in Britain for 170 years in a Victorian warehouse in London's East End.
On Wednesday night (Thursday NZ time), wearing blue overalls and a black fedora hat, the German doctor stood over the corpse of a
72-year-old man to conduct the procedure in front of television cameras and 500 people who had each paid £12 ($38) to watch the spectacle.
Assisted by two pathologists, one German and one British, he made a short speech before pulling back the sheets and making a "Y" incision in the body.
"I cut down through the thoracic cage, through the skin," he said as he made the first incision.
"What you see now is the yellow subcutaneous tissue... you see the body is really made up of shells."
Chaos preceded the autopsy as police tried to control the crowds attempting to get into the venue, which also stages Professor von Hagens' controversial Body Worlds exhibition of preserved human corpses.
Demand had been so great that an extra 150 people were told outside whether they had been given a seat under a public ballot system for the 2000 who failed to get tickets.
In a passionate address before the start of the autopsy, the doctor told them: "I stand here for democracy. I spent two years in prison when I protested against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
"This is a democratic country and I'm very sure there will be no arrests because at last with your appearance here the authorities in this country understand the time is over when medical knowledge could be confined to an elite."
He also read out statements from the man whose body was being used.
The statement from the man, who has not been named, said: "I entrust him with my body for any public enlightenment."
One of Professor von Hagens' assistants said the man had lived a normal life.
"There was nothing exceptional in his life, he was a businessman, an employee, who lost his job at the age of 50," he said. "At that time he started drinking."
The man had drunk up to two bottles of whisky a day and was a heavy smoker, the audience was told.
Anatomy professors were asked by Scotland Yard to attend the post-mortem examination after HM inspector of anatomy, Dr Jeremy Metters, said Professor von Hagens' procedure would be "a criminal offence under the Anatomy Act" because neither he nor the venue had licences to perform post-mortem procedures.
Dr Metters said he had asked police to take "appropriate action".
The autopsy was expected to last for about two hours, with the organs passed around the audience in trays.
- THE INDEPENDENT
5.00pm
LONDON - A German doctor, Professor Gunther von Hagens, has performed the first public autopsy in Britain for 170 years in a Victorian warehouse in London's East End.
On Wednesday night (Thursday NZ time), wearing blue overalls and a black fedora hat, the German doctor stood over the corpse of a
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