London ? In a gruesome spectacle reminiscent of the pre-Victorian past, a German doctor defied threats of prosecution Wednesday night and conducted a public autopsy in an art gallery, charging spectators $19 a head.

Compounding the controversy over the first public autopsy in Britain in 170 years, a TV network said it would broadcast edited footage.

Professor Gunther von Hagens began the post-mortem in front of 500 people in London’s East End, a district whose tourist attractions include the Tower of London and Jack the Ripper walks. In the audience were anatomy professors who were asked by Scotland Yard to attend after a government inspector warned the autopsy could be illegal.

Scotland Yard had refused to say whether it would stop the autopsy before a crowd and a TV camera crew at the exhibition center in Brick Lane where von Hagens has created a sensation with his Body Worlds exhibition of preserved human corpses, some dismembered or cut open.

The professor insisted he had the permission of the deceased’s family and a sound legal basis for performing the autopsy before the sellout crowd.

One of his assistants identified the hairy, potbellied body as that of a 72-year-old German man. “There was nothing exceptional in his life. He was a businessman, an employee, who lost his job at the age of 50. At that time he started drinking,” the assistant said.

The man then drank up to two bottles of whiskey a day and was a heavy smoker for the rest of his life, the assistant said.

Moments later, von Hagens, wearing a black fedora and a blue surgical gown, took his scalpel to the preserved corpse.

The autopsy was shown on giant screens inside the gallery.

After it was over, some people in the crowd said they liked what they saw.

“It think it’s absolutely fascinating. I’ve never seen anything like it before,” said accountant Louise Cotton, 40.

Medical student Cristina Koppel, who already had seen autopsies at Imperial College in London, praised von Hagens for being professional. “It wasn’t a show, it was informative,” she said.

In an age when forensic pathology features prominently in TV dramas such as the American “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” and Britain’s “Silent Witness,” von Hagens said he wanted to bring medical knowledge to a wider audience.

“There is huge demand among the public to see what an autopsy entails, especially in light of the fact that this procedure can be ordered on them or their loved ones without their consent according to British law,” he said.

But the Body Worlds exhibition has twice been attacked by protesters. Martin Wynness tossed paint across the floor and threw a blanket over the corpse of a pregnant woman, saying he could not bear to look at the 7-month-old fetus in the womb. Wynness was not charged.

Geoffrey Lee was charged by police with criminal damage after attacking a corpse on display with a hammer.

Von Hagens changed earlier plans to carry out the examination on the body of a 33-year-old woman who was epileptic ” reportedly because of opposition from epilepsy groups.

Public autopsies became popular across Europe from the 16th century, after the Roman Catholic Church gave permission for surgeons to dissect bodies to help understand the miracle of creation.

They were banned in Britain in 1832, five years before Queen Victoria ascended the throne, to stop unscrupulous surgeons taking unclaimed bodies from workhouses for dissection.