Rachiotoma

A rachiotome is a medical instrument used to post mortem opening of the spinal canal from behind. Although it looks more like a knife , it is a type of chisel . The blade is placed on the exposed vertebral arches from the dorso-lateral side and the "back of the knife" is hit with a hammer. This allows you to cut several arches at the same time, making this method time-saving. But hammering is also very strenuous and requires experience. Otherwise you focus too much on hammering and the result is an unclean dissection of the spinal cord with severing of the spinal ganglia .