The article deals with an important figure of forensic medicine, Ján Jesenský, who dissected a human cadaver on a public and press-documented performance in Prague in 1600. The importance of a public dissection in Prague can be seen mainly in historical context. It was an indisputable effort to raise the importance of Charles University in Prague and its return to a union of an important European state-governed educational institutions. The scientific significance of the dissection was overshadowed by the social impact. Thanks to Jesenský, the cadaver dissection, and therefore the autopsy, was included in the criminal process. The authors of this article bring closer the life of Ján Jesenský and introduce his contribution to the criminalistics development.