Historic public autopsy

A GERMAN doctor conducted Britain’s first public autopsy in more than 170 years last night, ignoring a government warning that he would face criminal penalties.

Professor Gunther von Hagens began the post mortem in front of a paying audience of 500 people in an art gallery in London’s East End. It included anatomy professors who were asked to attend by Scotland Yard after a government inspector warned the autopsy could be illegal.

Scotland Yard had refused to say whether it would stop the autopsy before a crowd and a TV camera crew at the gallery where von Hagens’ Body Worlds exhibition of preserved human corpses has created a sensation.