Dissection is usually the process of disassembling and observing something to determine its internal structure and as an aid to discerning the functions and relationships of its components.

In the past, anatomization

Anatomy

Anatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...

 of the body of a convicted person was sometimes ordered as part of the punishment. It happened in 1805 in Massachusetts to James Halligan and Dominic Daley

Dominic Daley

Dominic Daley was an Irishman who emigrated to America and lived and worked in Boston. He and James Halligan were arrested on November 12, 1805 and convicted for the murder of Marcus Lyon. They protested their innocence, Jean-Louis Lefebvre de Cheverus, a priest from Boston came, with great...

 after their public hanging

Hanging

Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain...

.