A physician who performs an autopsy without the consent of the person having the custody of the deceased does so at his own risk, except in those cases in which the autopsy is in accordance with legal statutes. In the majority of the States there are statutes providing that the Coroner or Board of Health shall order an autopsy whenever a person is found dead and the cause of his death is not apparent, and cannot be ascertained from the evidence given, or from a superficial examination of the body. In such cases no permit from the relatives is necessary, and an autopsy performed under the direction of law is never subject to legal punishment, if it has been performed according to approved methods. Nevertheless, even in these cases it is a better policy to secure the consent of the custodian of the body, when this is possible. When consent to an autopsy is withheld and the physician feels that such an examination is necessary, he should turn the case over to the Coroner or Board of Health, and act under such direction. Conflicting decisions, however, have been made in different States. The Supreme Court of Indiana (1909) held that a Coroner cannot order an autopsy unless there was a reasonable supposition that death had occurred from violence or casualty. A suit brought by an Indiana physician to recover fee for an autopsy held on the order and under the direction of a Coroner was set aside on the ground that there was not the slightest suspicion of death from casualty or violence. Such a decision is too narrow and not framed in accordance with the actual needs of the times in so far as the protection or enlightenment of the community is concerned. Under such a decision a Coroner or Board of Health could not in safety order an autopsy in the case of a death in which the diagnosis had not been established clinically, when no suspicion of violence or casualty exists, although the establishment of the diagnosis through an autopsy might be of the greatest importance to the family or community. On the other hand the Court of Appeals in Kentucky (1906) affirmed judgment for the defendant in a suit for damages brought against a physician for performing an unauthorized autopsy to secure a burial permit, the court holding that, if the autopsy was made in good faith for the purpose of ascertaining the cause of death in order that a burial certificate might be granted, and if the autopsy was made decently with due regard to the sex of the deceased and without unnecessary incisions or mutilations, there could be no grounds for damages. This is a reasonable and just decision and laws framed upon it should be passed in all the States. Autopsies performed under such conditions, however, should always be conducted in the presence of several witnesses competent to testify as to the methods used.