An investigator just demobbed from the army got the raw end of the stick, the fate gave him a very unpleasant sample of suicide for his first forensic autopsy. The old man not long before was released from the camp and they at the TsBL did not wish to admit him and the civilian hospital rejected him because he had not yet worked as a civilian for six months. The old man suffered of a lung abscess, his lung was rotting, the stench from the poor thing was awful, he had nowhere to live and nothing to eat. He came to the correct conclusion and... hanged himself. But the investigator got the raw end of the stick twice: Pavel Evdokimovich was busy, he wanted to write a report before breakfast and assigned me to make the autopsy.
«Just you wait! Now I will have a ride on you, investigator!» I thought.
To confirm the fact of suicide the following was enough: 1) the visual examination; 2) Tardieu's spots on the epicardium (asphyxia); and 3) the bursting of intima of the carotid artery.
But I made the autopsy legea artis - in due form. I made him to look closely at the terrible picture of a festering process. The investigator was pale and on the verge of a faint. However he endured! I capitulated. Here Nikishin entered and said, «Finished? Now let's have a bite, shall we?»
There the investigator broke down...