Notes on Autopsies

These notes can be read in conjunction with the individual autopsy reports, and provide some hints as to what PCs can expect to learn, and how long it would take them.

The Autopsy

Autopsies are called 'post mortems' in the UK. I've used the US term on this page, since most readers are likely to be American.

The fictional autopsies described on this site are more thorough than a typical real-world one would be, since I have assumed that the researchers would want to look in great detail at what is after all, a rather unusual cadaver.

For comparison, the normal weights for bodily organs in a human adult are:

Histopathology & other tests

Histopathology is the examination of tissues under the microscope to determine the presence and cause of diseases. Histopathology generally deals with living patients (especially in the diagnosis of cancer) but is also employed in some autopsy cases. The basic test consists of preserving the tissue sample in formaldehyde solution, dehydrating it, embedding it in wax, cutting 3-5 micron sections (1 micron = 1/1000 mm) from it, then staining the sections with haematoxylin and eosin ('H&E') before examining them under a microscope to make a diagnosis.

This process generally takes 2 days to complete, but it can be quicker or slower depending on factors such as the size of the specimen. Preparing large, high quality sections of brain tissue can take weeks, although simple diagnoses may require only 3-4 days. Examination of bone tissue may take a week or longer, unless particularly expensive equipment is available.

Immunocytochemistry and tinctorial staining can add another day, and is used to determine chemical constituents of the tissue or to distinguish between tissue components of similar microscopic appearance. Ultrastructural examination requires an electron microscope and takes around a week. Cytogenetics requires a specialist laboratory, and is used to detect chromosomal abnormalities - more detailed genetic mutations would normally only be detectable if you knew exactly what to look for.

As a result of all this, player characters may not get the full picture from an autopsy for some time after the actual dissection and examination is carried out. However, the majority of autopsies would not require any histopatholgical examination, which is commonly reserved for possible diagnoses of cancer or similar diseases. However, if one were conducting an examination of something quite so unusual as a Deep One, such additional tests would certainly be made.

1920s Pathology

Pathological knowledge was more limited in the 1920s, although the actual dissection is much the same. Understanding of the true function of the endocrine system was more limited, and relatively little was known of the immune system. Histopathology took longer than today, perhaps adding another day onto the process. Immunocytochemistry, electron microscopy and cytogenetics did not exist.

Glossary

The following terms are used in various places in the documents (I make no apologies for my use of British spellings!):

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This page was last updated 16th March 2004 by Jamie 'Trotsky' Revell. Comments are welcome.