Analysis of Causes of Death as Determined at Autopsy in a Single Institute, The Grant Medical College and Sir J. J. Hospital, Mumbai, India, Between 1884 and 1966

A Retrospective Analysis of 13 024 Autopsies in Adults * Context.-Grant Medical College and Sir J. J. Hospital, Mumbai (India), have a long tradition of clinical autopsies, wherein autopsy records have existed since 1884. In 1840 the book entitled Pathologica Indica, Or the Anatomy of Indian Diseases was published in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta).1 In 1882 a standardized autopsy protocol was adopted at the Grant Medical College (GMC; now Grant Government Medical College) and Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy Hospital (JJH), Mumbai (formerly Bombay).2 In 1897 Robert Koch visited Mumbai and organized laboratory tests of Yersin's serum and Sir Waldemar Mordechai Wolff Haffkine's vaccine against plague in the laboratory at the GMC, Mumbai.3 On March 24, 2007, on the occasion of "World Tuberculosis Day," The Times of India (Mumbai edition) published a writeup: "Koch's room now stores specimens." [...]a refurbishing project for Robert Koch's workplace was undertaken. The nomenclature of the diagnoses and pathologicanatomy descriptions changed during the decades; hence, while describing causes of death we did not use the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10 CM) coding system, and instead followed a methodology described by Winter et al,10 wherein the diagnosis was correlated with the cause of death-for example, pneumonia was categorized under "infection" and not as a disease of the respiratory tract. [...]in this study the causes of death were categorized as infection, cardiovascular diseases, central nervous system diseases, and cancer.