15283-B-Blokker

13 General introduction 1 that the person may still be alive after all. However, there was no formal ban on autopsy, and in 1231, Frederick II established the first law that authorized autopsy in his Holy Roman Empire. After a low tide of autopsies in Europe during the (early) Middle Ages, objections to post-mortem investigation were more often put aside. It slowly became widely accepted that autopsies were performed, though mostly on victims of war or crimes, on criminals - to learn, show, and teach any interested parties present in the theatres (figure 3) - and, when therewere hospitals, on deceased patients to compare symptoms and anatomical or pathological findings. 28,29 Figure 3