Forensic pathologist hears what the dead say when they can’t speak
AUTOPSY RYAN BLUMENTHAL Jonathan Ball Review: Barbara Spaanderman
WE HAVE one certainty in life, and that is death. We don’t know when it will happen or, how, but we do know that it will.
Ryan Blumenthal studied to be a doctor but became more and more annoyed for having to treat people who did not look after their own health.
Heavy smokers, eaters and drinkers would expect to be treated with the same care and compassion as people who routinely lived a moderate life and fell ill or were hurt through no specific cause of their own.
So he decided that if he did not really want to help those who would not help themselves, he would help those who were past help in life, but now needed the services of a forensic pathologist to work out why, mostly, they were murdered.
Blumenthal writes with a dry sense of humour, and his book is written from the perspective of giving direction and advice to an aspirant pathologist.
Evidently being a pathologist also puts one onto the A-list of celebrity invitations because of the questions he gets asked. Like what is the perfect and undetectable murder? What are the different ways of dying? What is the most painless death to die? In answer to this he gives the quaint and bizarre answer that people who commit suicide will put a soft cloth around a rope to lessen the pain.
People are fascinated by the smells associated with death, and Blumenthal lists them all in varying degrees of offensiveness. It is probably advisable as a reader of this informative and entertaining book not to do so while eating Gorgonzola or any other smelly cheese.
Being a pathologist in Africa has its own interests and rewards. Malaria, bee stings, snake bites and death by animals such as crocodiles, sharks and lions are part and parcel of life here. Having to conduct post-mortems in the African bush is complex.
No running water. Intermittent electricity and pesky flies which are a nuisance except in the unusual instance where death was caused by swallowing insecticide and was revealed by a fly instantly dying on the corpse. Problem solved.
Malaria is a traveller’s talking point. Apparently citronella sprays excite elephants but do very little to protect one against malaria.
As the incubation period of malaria is 21 days, it’s possible to die without thinking back 20 days to a visit in a game park.
The headaches and flu-like symptoms are passed off without further thought. One of the strangest malaria deaths Blumenthal encountered was finding a well-off woman in her fivestar hotel in her bath, dead.
The situation in itself presents many possibilities. Falling on her head because of slippery surfaces. There could be an overdose, or gassing, but only an in-depth forensic search revealed cerebral malaria.
Blumenthal ends his book with an unexpected but welcome chapter on 10 lessons for the living from the dead, which include things like what kind of life partner to choose.