The Final Diagnosis by Arthur Hailey Page A

time also we’ll be studying organs removed at other autopsies—probably six to a dozen cases all together.”
    It sounded so cold and impersonal, Vivian thought. But maybe you had to get that way if you did this all the time. Involuntarily she shuddered. Mike Seddons caught her eye and smiled slightly. She wondered if he was amused or being sympathetic. She could not be sure. Now one of the other girls, was putting a question. She sounded uneasy, almost afraid to ask. “The body—is it buried then . . . just by itself?”
    This was an old one. Pearson answered it. “It varies. Teaching centers such as this usually do more study after autopsies than is done in non-teaching hospitals. In this hospital just the shell of the body goes on to the undertakers.” He added as an afterthought: “They wouldn’t thank us for putting the organs back anyway. Just be a nuisance when they’re embalming.”
    That was true, McNeil reflected. Maybe not the gentlest way of putting it, but true all the same. He had sometimes wondered himself if mourners and others who visited funeral parlors knew how little remained in a body that had been autopsied. After an autopsy like this one, and depending on how busy a pathology department was, it might be weeks before the body organs were disposed of finally, and even then small specimens from each were kept stored indefinitely.
    “Are there never any exceptions?” The student nurse asking the questions seemed persistent. Pearson did not appear to object though. Maybe this is one of his patient days, McNeil thought. The old man had them occasionally.
    “Yes, there are,” he was saying. “Before we can do any autopsy we must have permission from the family of the deceased. Sometimes that permission is unrestricted, as in this case, and then we can examine the entire head and torso. At other times we may get only limited permission. For example, a family may ask specifically that the cranial contents be undisturbed. When that happens in this hospital we respect those wishes.”
    “Thank you, Doctor.” Apparently the girl was satisfied, whatever her reason had been for asking.
    But Pearson had not finished.
    “You do run into cases where for reasons of religious faith the organs are required for burial with the body. In that case, of course, we comply with the request.”
    “How about Catholics?” It was one of the other girls this time. “Do they insist on that?”
    “Most of them don’t, but there are some Catholic hospitals which do. That makes the pathologist’s work difficult. Usually.”
    As he added the last word Pearson glanced sardonically at McNeil. Both of them knew what Pearson was thinking—one of the larger Catholic hospitals across town had a standing order that the organs of all bodies autopsied were to be returned to the body for burial. But sometimes a little sleight of hand was practiced. The busy pathology department of the other hospital frequently kept a spare set of organs on hand. Thus, when a new autopsy was done, the organs removed were replaced by the spare ones, so that the body could be released and the latest set of organs examined at leisure. These organs, in turn, were then used for the next body. Thus the pathologists were, in effect, always one ahead of the game.
    McNeil knew that Pearson, though not a Catholic, disapproved of this. And whatever else you might say about the old man, he always insisted on following autopsy permissions both to the letter and the spirit. There was one phrase, sometimes used in completing the official form, which read “limited to abdominal incision.” Some pathologists he knew did a full autopsy with this single incision. As he had heard one man put it, “With an abdominal incision, if you’ve a mind to, you can reach up inside and get everything, including the tongue.” Pearson—to his credit, McNeil thought—would never permit this, and in Three Counties an “abdominal incision” release meant examination