Aims, goals and methods of

Pathological Anatomy
Done by: Sangova Farzona
Assistant of Pathological Anatomy and
Forensic Medicine Department – ATSMU.
With the support of “Avicenna Project”

- Dushanbe, Tajikistan -
The content of topic • Definition

• History of Pathological Anatomy

• Aims and goals of pathological anatomy

• Methods of pathological anatomy

• Types of microscope

• Terminology

• Tanathology
 “
DEFINITION
Pathological anatomy
(from the Greek world Pathos – suffering
and logos – study) is a branch of pathology
that study diseases through direct
microscopic examination of cells, tissues
(autopsy and biopsy)and body fluids.

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 History of pathological anatomy
• The real practice in medicine began with Hippocrates (460 – 370 BC) as known as
“The father of Medicine”.
• The early human dissection -. Herophilus of Chalcedon and Erasistratus of Chios
• Cornelius Celsus first described four cardinal signs of inflammation – Rubor,
Tumor, Calor, Dolor.
• Cladius Galen postulated humoral theory wich suggested that the illness resulted
from imbalance between four humors: Blood, Lymph, Black bile and biliary
secretion.
• But the main investigation in pathological anatomy have been done by Rudolf
Virchow (1821-1878). He studied the structure of the cell with a microscope for a
better understanding of disease. This scientist also known as “Father of Modern
Pathology”, because he made a lot of investigation and wrote numerous number of
descriptions.
 Aims and goals of pathological anatomy

• The main aims and goals of pathological anatomy is provide the

knowledge, technical skills and experience necessary for students, to
practice anatomic and clinical pathology in classes and laboratory.
• Development of investigative skills to better understand pathological
processes.
• To be informed about the pathogenesis and mechanism of diseases.
• Practice the technical and mechanical aspects of laboratory pathology.
• Analyze laboratory and clinical data.
 Methods of pathological anatomy
• Pathological anatomy is a discipline that combines different types of
methods to establish final diagnosis, mechanism and the cause of
disease. These methods are:
• Autopsy
• Biopsy
• Macroscopic examination
• Microscopic examination
• Histological analysis
• Cytological analysis
• Etc.
 Microscope is the basic tool of the pathologist.
Types of microscope
The usual type of microscope used in clinical laboratories is called light
microscope. In general, there are two types of light microscopes:

• Simple microscope. This is a • Compound microscope. The

simple hand magnifying lens.
The magnification power of
hand lens is from 2x to 200x.
Inverted microscopes are used
for in-vitro fertilization, live cell
imaging, developmental biology,
cell biology, neuroscience, and
microbiology.
compound microscope can be used
to view a variety of samples, some
of which include: blood cells,
cheek cells, parasites, bacteria,
algae, tissue, and thin sections of
organs. The magnification of a
compound microscope is most
commonly 40x, 100x, 400x, and
sometimes 1000x.
 • Disease - is an opposite of health i.e. what is not healthy is
disease. Health may be defined as a condition when the
individual is in complete accord with the surroundings, while
disease is loss of ease (or comfort) to the body.
Terminology

• Patient - is the person affected by disease.

• Lesions - are the characteristic changes in tissues and cells
produced by disease in an individual or experimental animal.
• Pathologic changes or morphology - consist of examination of
diseased tissues. Pathologic changes can be recognized with
the naked eye (gross or macroscopic changes) or studied by
microscopic examination of tissues.
 • Causal factors - responsible for the lesions are included in
etiology of disease (i.e. ‘why’ of disease).
• Pathogenesis - mechanism by which the lesions are produced is
termed pathogenesis of disease (i.e. ‘how’ of disease).
Terminology

• Symptom - functional implications of the lesion felt by the

patient are symptoms and those discovered by the clinician are
the physical signs.
• Clinical significance of the morphologic and functional changes
together with results of other investigations help to arrive at an
answer to what is wrong - diagnosis, what is going to happen -
prognosis, what can be done about it - treatment, and finally
what should be done to avoid complications and spread -
prevention.
 • Thanatology is the branch of science that deals with death
in all its aspects.
• It also includes bodily changes that accompany death
(postmortem changes) and their medico-legal significance.
Tanathology

• Death occurs in two stages:

• Somatic, systemic or clinical.
• Molecular or cellular.
• Early signs of death are:
• Cooling of the Dead Body (Algor Mortis) - Algor mortis
(Latin algor: coolness, mortis: death) or chill of death is the
cooling of the body that normally takes place after death,
where the body temperature equilibrates with its
environmental temperature.
 • Postmortem Staining (Livor Mortis) - is bluish or purplish-red
discoloration resulting from gravitational settling of blood in the
toneless capillaries and venules of the dependant parts of the dead
body.
Tanathology

• Cause: After the stoppage of circulation, there is stagnation of

blood in the vessels, and it tends to sink by force of gravity in the
capillaries and venules of the dependent parts of the body.
• Rigor Mortis - Rigor mortis (Latin, stiffness of death) is that state
of the muscles in a dead body when they become stiff or rigid with
some degree of shortening
• Decomposition/Putrefaction: Putrefaction is a process by which
complex organic body tissue breaks down into simpler inorganic
compounds or elements due to the action of saprophytic
microorganisms or due to autolysis.