Právo a medicína ve vztahu k mrtvým tělům (sebevrahů) na přelomu 18. a 19. století

Abstract

The study examines the relationship between law and medicine on the example of the autopsies of suicides in the Litoměřice and Mladá Boleslav region, a case in point being suicide investigations from the first half of the 19th century pointing to an ever closer relationship between the state and medicine in relation to the dead bodies. This ‘medicalisation’ of (voluntary) death influenced the posthumous treatment of the suicide’s body (with more frequent burials in sanctified land) and, as a result, contributed to its decriminalisation.