Necropsy

Eleven lines starting at the eleventh line on the eleventh page of Time of Death by Jessica Snyder Sachs, in memory of all the victims of war especially conscripts and civilians regardless of whose flag they use to cover their dead.

Many trace the work of forensic pathology — the medicolegal

investigation of death — to the ancient Greeks

who, circa 380 B.C., began dissecting

various animal carcasses and applying

their findings — at times absurdly —

to humans. Greek physicians did perform the rare human

dissection. But Hippocratic writings express a deep disdain

for the business, even as they named it: autopsy.

Despite the strange implications of self-

examination, the term has resisted 2,000 years of scientific

lobbying to replace it with the more logical necropsy.

From Time of Death by Jessica Snyder Sachs