Prosector

PROSECTOR, prosector (Latin - dissector), was the term used in the Middle Ages for a person who performed dissection or the cutting open of bodies of the deceased. In later times, the term P. came to refer to specialists, mainly physicians, who directly supervised the dissection of animal or human bodies regardless of the purpose being pursued; positions of P. were established at departments of normal and pathological anatomy, zoology, physiology, histology, forensic medicine, as well as at medical institutions. In more recent times, P. refers only to physician-pathologists who head special departments, so-called prosectories, at medical institutions. By the nature of their activities, P. is primarily a researcher, studying the material substrate of various diseases and pathological-anatomical changes in them; at the same time, they exercise scientific control over the correspondence of the diagnosis to autopsy data, clarifying the diagnoses of corresponding diseases with the help of autopsy, microscopic examination of biopsy material, experiments, etc. For this reason, positions of P. in large medical institutions and institutes are customarily filled by specially qualified specialists, for example, professors, associate professors of corresponding departments of medical universities, and the prosectories themselves are made into a base for teaching pathological anatomy. P. carries out their work with the help of technical staff (preparators, attendants), while in larger institutions (in Moscow from 250 beds and above) with the so-called assistants to P., who are also physician-pathologists. By their official position, P. is subordinate to the chief physician of the hospital and enjoys all the rights of a senior physician of the department (Regulations on the management of medical institutions; Weekly Journal of the Moscow Health Department, 1924, N° 47-48). The duties of P., in addition to autopsies and examination of biopsy material, include directing the scientific work of the prosectory and hospital staff in their field, participation in the life of the hospital through demonstrations, reports, abstracts, etc. P. organizes a museum of macro- and microscopic specimens, compiles annual reports on the prosectory, and monitors the implementation of general provisions and instructions concerning autopsy work (see Autopsy). In major centers of the USSR, prosectors (since 1918 in Moscow, since 1930 in Leningrad) are united in a so-called Commission (plenum) of prosectors, headed by a chairman or consultant of the city health department, organizationally connected with the latter in a manner similar to analogous consultants-radiologists, laboratory assistants, physiotherapists, and T.P.

I. Davydovsky.