Provider: Moravian Museum, Brno, Czech Republic

TY  - JOUR
JO  - Anthropologie (Brno)
TI  - AUTOPSY EVIDENCE ON SKELETAL REMAINS
FROM THE DISCALCED CARMELITE
MONASTERY IN PRAGUE AND THE
BENEDICTINE MONASTERY IN KLADRUBY
(17th–18th CENTURIES)
AU  - Cvrček J
AU  - Trnka J
AU  - Zazvonilová E
AU  - Kapusta J
AU  - Mikulec J
AU  - Velemínský P
Y1  - 2026
VL  - 64
IS  - 2
PB  - Moravian Museum, Brno, Czech Republic
SN  - 0323-1119
SP  - 0
EP  - 0
KW  - Church – Baroque – Medicine – Crypt – Autopsy – Osteobiography
N2  - 
N2  - Although research into the history of autopsies in Central Europe has advanced in recent years, the current
state of knowledge remains insufficient due both to the low number of historical written sources, and insufficient research
in the fields of osteobiography and paleopathology. This is particularly true of autopsies performed outside the Faculty
of Medicine in Prague—their circumstances, frequencies, techniques, or even the biographies of the doctors involved—
and especially in the context of the Roman Catholic Church in the Baroque period, for which a relatively large number
of written sources exist compared to earlier periods. This paper presents and analyzes evidence of autopsies in skeletal
remains from the Discalced Carmelite Monastery in Prague's Lesser Town and the Benedictine Monastery in Kladruby
in the 17th to 18th centuries. In Prague, the remains of approximately two hundred individuals included those of a child
aged 3–4 years and a male aged 30–40 years, both with a perimortem horizontal section of the skull. Additional
autopsies of people buried at this church were mentioned in monastic records and other archival sources. At Kladruby,
sectioning of the skull was found in one of the one hundred and eleven monks interred, aged 50–60 years, but no
significant skeletal pathologies were found in any of these individuals. This pilot study significantly advances our
knowledge of this topic, but at the same time raises a number of new biological, historical, and sociocultural questions.
ER  -