# Autopsy is for humans what is it called for animals? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 11, 2010, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/autopsy-is-for-humans-what-is-it-called-for-animals/524470 "2010-01-11T03:28:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/autopsy-is-for-humans-what-is-it-called-for-animals/524470/21 "2010-01-12T19:11:46Z")
Vivisection has a VERY negative connotation, to me, at least. I remember when animal rights protests were mostly about stopping vivisection. They used to do this with frogs in high school biology classes…they’d pith them, which is basically giving them a kind of lobotomy so that they still breathed and the heart still beat, but they couldn’t move. Then they’d dissect them like that so the students could watch the heart beat and the lungs breathe. They had stopped this practice before I got to biology in high school, thank TDOYC! ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/autopsy-is-for-humans-what-is-it-called-for-animals/524470/22 "2010-01-12T19:25:13Z")
Huh. I think I’ve only ever encountered the term “vivisection” in regards to the Nazis and fictional mad scientists and their evil experiments on humans. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/autopsy-is-for-humans-what-is-it-called-for-animals/524470/23 "2010-01-13T03:42:46Z")
Yeah, “vivisection”, in my mind, implies that there’s no intention to put the parts back together. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/autopsy-is-for-humans-what-is-it-called-for-animals/524470.md?page=1)