Risking Life for Death: Lessons for the Living from the Autopsy Table ***
Ryan Blumenthal
Jonathan Ball Publishers
Working on an autopsy table is a serious business, one that can harm pathologists. Doing their job places their lives at risk for another's death, often exposing them to harmful objects, poisons, gases, even weapons, hence the title.
The author, with more than 20 years as a forensic pathologist, presents real-life case studies supported by what he calls the bedrock of modern forensics, Locard's exchange principle, which holds that “the perpetrator of a crime will bring something into the crime scene and will leave with something from it”. Even if it is just a trace, evidence is left or removed and can prove a crime has been committed.
Written in a fresh and easy-to-read style, often laced with humour, Blumenthal discusses some of his cases, such as how he concluded that a victim was struck by lightning due to clues left on the man's corpse. He then adds fascinating facts about the intensity of lightning strikes and their effects on the body.
Another chapter looks at drug use and date rape drugs such as Rohypnol, which leaves victims with no recollection of the crimes, meaning they often go unreported. There's the case of a man who died in church, only for it to be found upon autopsy he was a drug mule who ingested drugs that burst in his stomach. There's also the puzzle of the man who died of an insect bite.
The book examines a multitude of ways to die, some posing a problem for the pathologist to solve, such as the case of a young man who hanged himself, but was cut down by his parents who put him in his bed to cover up the suicide because they were ashamed.
Blumenthal says understanding Locard's principle could make you happier by recognising you are the result of your contacts and choices. Looking at a body on the autopsy table, he says he can often see how a person's choices led to their demise. His advice is to surround yourself with wiser, happier and healthier people than yourself, using contact theory to grow old better.
Blumenthal has such wide and engrossing medical knowledge it's hard to put the book down.
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