X-Message-Number: 118 From arpa!Xerox.COM!merkle.pa Wed Jul 12 10:13:41 PDT 1989 Received: from Semillon.ms by ArpaGateway.ms ; 12 JUL 89 10:14:54 PDT Date: Wed, 12 Jul 89 10:13:41 PDT From: Subject: Unnatural Death: Confessions of a Medical Examiner To: Cc: Message-ID: <> The Wall Street Journal (Wednesday, July 12, 1989 page A13) has a review of: "Unnatural Death: Confessions of a Medical Examiner" by Dr. Michael Baden. It sounds rather interesting. Among other things, it says: "...forensic pathology is a scorned field. In the eyes of the rest of the medical profession, Dr. Baden notes, it is a specialty 'filled with misfits, a dumping ground for incompetents, a field that alcoholics descended into, a refuge for doctors who couldn't make it in the real world.'" "The first coroners we know of worked for King Richard I, around 1200. They were particularly skilled at establishing suicide as a cause of death since by law a suicide's property went to the king." "The two things people have the most trouble swallowing are steak and shrimp" "Under New York City's Tammany Hall, coroner's were paid by the body. They were known to fish a corpse from the river, issue a John Doe death certificate, and throw it right back so they could repeat the process." Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=118