The New International Encyclopædia/Post Mortem

POST MORTEM (Lat., after death). A legal term employed to denote an examination of a dead body to determine the cause of death. Usually, some dissection or mutilation of the body is necessary, but this rests in the discretion of the examining physician. A coroner is required to hold a post-mortem examination of the body of a person dying under suspicious circumstances. A person other than a public officer in the performance of his duty has no right to dissect or mutilate a dead body, without the consent of the nearest relative of the deceased, and is liable in damages if he does so without such consent. Consult Perley, Mortuary Law.