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
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Subject: Unnatural Death:  Confessions of a Medical Examiner
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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."

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