Dissection

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This article is about the biological process. For other uses, see Dissection (disambiguation).

For the Swedish blackened death metal band, see Dissection (band)

Dissected rat showing major organs.

Dissection is usually the process of disassembling and observing something to determine its internal structure and as an aid to discerning the function and relationships of its components. It may refer also to some spontaneous natural process of dissasembly as in aortic dissection.

In biology

Dissection is usually applied to the examination of plants and animals. The term is also used in relation to mechanisms, computer programs, written materials, etc., as a synonym for terms such as reverse engineering or literary deconstruction. Dissection is usually performed by students in courses of biology, botany and anatomy and in association with medical and arts studies.

Vivisection refers to the dissection of a living animal, often for the purposes of physiological investigation. However, in modern parlance the term is often used by animal rights activists to refer to any type of experimentation in which animals are injured, with or without actual dissection.

Dissection is often performed as a part of determining a cause of death in autopsy (on humans) and necropsy (on animals) and is an intrinsic part of forensic medicine, such as would be practiced by a coroner.

The first public human dissection was conducted by Ján Jesenský (1566-1621), the Slovak physician, surgeon, anatomist and the rector of a Charles University in Prague in 1600.

High school students stereotypically dissect frogs or fetal pigs in science class, but the trend in the US is towards allowing students to opt out of dissection activities.