I realize I am joining this party rather late, but here goes.

When I was in medical school, we had several lectures in forensic pathology given by one of the state medical examiners, Dr. Davis. He's pointed out that
"autopsy" could mean "to see with one's own eyes" or it could mean "to see oneself." That is (in the latter case), for one human being to examine the corpse of another human being, they get a blimpse of their own anatomy and their own mortality.

"Epidemic" literally means "upon the people," so a disease upon the animals would be "epizootic," although as a new word to me it sounds like an adjective or at best a geologic era. I wonder if there were a disease that tended to spread among animals every 4 years, would it be an "episodic epizootic"? har har har har.