Saner Attitude Toward Post-Mortems Seen By Magrath In Long Experience--Nervousness Obstacle In Way of Killers

While not long ago angry mobs occasionally barred a medical examiner from entering the mortuary where he was to perform an autopsy, the attitude of the general public toward the examination of the dead has undergone a complete change, and exhumations and careful post-mortems are now often demanded, Professor George Burgess Magrath '94, incumbent elect of the chair of Legal Medicine, declared in an interview yesterday.

Religious cults which opposed any tampering with corpses, and the belief that such examinations cast a reflection upon the relatives of the deceased, constituted a semi-superstitious sentiment against exhumation. Present-day accident insurance and double-indemnity clauses, however, together with the decreased expense of autopsies, says Dr. Magrath, are responsible for the change in sentiment.

Concealing Suicides

Attempts to conceal suicides are quite frequent in a medical examiner's experience. In one case when entering the bed-room of a youth said by his sister to have died of heart trouble, Dr. Magrath noted the peculiar color of his ear. Although the room was free from odor, turning down the bed-clothes brought forth the smell of illuminating gas. An examination of the blood showed it to be of the bright magenta color peculiar to victims of gas asphyxia. The ordinary color of blood encountered in autopsies is a grayish blue. Dr. Magrath went out into the hall where the sister was waiting, and turning to her suddenly, shouted, "Who turned off the gas?" Taken off her guard, the girl finally admitted removing a rubber hose, which she had found connecting the gas jet with the boy's mouth, and opening the windows so as to permit the gas to escape.

Absurd Mistakes

Nervousness and hurry, factors that every killer must cope with, are responsible for absurd mistakes. Dr. Magrath told of a man who in attempting to make the shot-gun murder of his wife appear a suicide, fastened a string to the trigger guard of the weapon instead of to the trigger itself.