The Anatomy of Deception - Lawrence Goldstone [4]
Beyond the sink, a doorway led into the mortuary, which contained a bank of cast-iron ice chests that could accommodate sixteen bodies. Charlie was responsible for maintaining the ice, which, even in early spring, required regular changing. A rear door led out to a gravel path where bodies and ice were received, and where wagons of undertakers took the remains away. Occasionally, simple services for the dead were conducted within the mortuary itself.
On the second floor, four rooms were set aside for study and research. It was here that we performed urine analysis, prepared culture media, and examined slides. One of the rooms was a small library and records storage area.
The Dead House held not only the deceased from the two hospitals, but also the bodies of paupers, criminals, and any unidentified, unclaimed corpse encountered within the city limits by the Philadelphia Police Department. Today’s subjects represented a typically diverse assortment. The five chests holding cadavers available for autopsy had been marked by Charlie with white chalk; he had also left a scrawled note detailing the particulars of each case. The Professor could choose from a carpenter who had succumbed to a respiratory disorder in the hospital, a male Negro and a young woman found dead in the streets, an elderly woman who had probably died of stomach cancer, and a Chinaman with a gunshot wound.
“Quite a bounty, eh?” he exulted, a wide smile disappearing under the ends of his mustache. “Who shall be first?” He moved to the nearest chest. “Let’s start with our carpenter.” He opened the top to reveal a bald man of about forty, heavily muscled about the arms. Three of us lifted him out of the ice onto a wheeled table and rolled him into the autopsy room.
After the carpenter had been transferred to a postmortem table, the Professor assigned tasks. “Who’ll take notes?” he asked. “Turk … no, you observe. Corrigan. You get the chore.” Corrigan, a stocky, goggle-eyed, bandy-legged young man from South Philadelphia, was eerily reminiscent of a bulldog. He possessed the talent to be a first-rate physician but his dedication was suspect. He had taken notes just two weeks before, and assigning him the tedious chore again so soon was the Professor’s way of chiding him to greater application.
As Corrigan sulked off toward the desk, Turk cast a grin his way. “Be sure to form your letters clearly,” he called.
The Professor laughed and the rest of us chuckled as well. He rarely tolerated sarcasm in anyone else, but seemed to give Turk extra latitude. Perhaps he admired, as I did, Turk’s rise from poverty. “Simpson,” the Professor went on, “you will handle weights and measures, and Carroll will assist.”
Simpson and I were almost always given the most responsible tasks. I was senior in experience, with almost five years in practice, and Simpson was without question the most devoted and hardworking young physician I had ever encountered. Fully cognizant of the risk the Professor had taken in including her on the staff, she seemed determined to leave not a scintilla of doubt that his decision had been the correct one. She was a square-faced, slightly thickset woman, three years my junior. Her speech, while lacking the lilt of the upper classes, was precise and well enunciated, indicating good schooling and, I assumed, an upbringing to match.