Medicine: Medical Sleuthing

Fewer murders are solved in the brains of super-detectives than by surgeons at their autopsy tables. The small band of U. S. doctors who occupy the point of contact between medicine and the law must be not only smart but versatile. Granted that they should be well-grounded in medicine, surgery and autopsy technique, they must also know special tests for blood and other stains, be familiar with firearms and the effects on human tissues of bullets and powder; with botany (to identify plant dusts on clothing, vegetable fibres and plant seeds in stomachs); with entomology (because insect infestation helps determine the time of death in bodies long dead).

New York University is the only U. S. institution where a candidate can get an advanced degree for graduate work in forensic medicine. The course requires an M.D. degree to start with and lasts three years. If successful, the candidate becomes a Doctor of Medical Sciences. Currently only two doctors are studying at the University for this degree. They are taught by Dr. Thomas H. Gonzales, chief medical examiner of New York City, and his staff, and by Dr. Harrison Stanford Martland, medical examiner of Newark, N. J. This week Dr. Martland is scheduled to deliver a popular lecture in Manhattan on the peculiar lore of his field. Remembering that the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a doctor before he began writing detective fiction, Dr. Martland entitled his talk, "Dr. Watson and Mr. Sherlock Holmes."

Also for the layman is a book recently published by one of Dr. Martland's colleagues—Dr. M. Edward Marten, long-time deputy chief medical examiner of New York City. Dr. Marten is in charge of the Brooklyn and Queens branches of the medical examiner's office, estimates that he has performed between 4,000 and 5,000 autopsies. The Doctor Looks at Murder* not only describes the various techniques which a medical examiner must have at his command, but is full of colorful if grisly episodes which stand out from his long experience.

Some 75,000 persons die in New York City every year, and of these about one-fifth—43 per day—come to the attention of the medical examiner. Many of them are newborn babies abandoned in doorways, rubbish heaps, lavatories. To establish a presumption of infanticide, it is necessary to show that the child was not born dead. The autopsy surgeon removes the lungs, places them in a basin of water. If the child lived even briefly after birth, his lungs will contain air and will float; if not, they will sink.

When a person is hanged, the marks on the neck extend upward and Backward toward the point of suspension, because of the weight of the body. If the marks are horizontal, they show that the victim was not hanged but garroted, so that suicide is ruled out, no matter in what circumstances the body is found. In general, deaths by asphyxia are characterized by blueness (cyanosis) of the face, ears, fingernails and lips; the eyes are bloodshot and the inside of the lids are red; and there are tiny hemorrhages under the scalp. If the victim was manually strangled, the little hyoid bone in the throat is invariably crushed. If carbon monoxide was the asphyxiating agent, the skin is cherry red.