8 Myths About Pathologists That Make You Shiver

Myth 1. Pathologists are constantly dissecting corpses

This is perhaps the most common misconception. When we hear the word "pathologist", we immediately imagine a gloomy doctor in a blood-stained apron, who cuts dead bodies with a scalpel.

But in fact, representatives of this profession most often work not with corpses, but with histological sections of tissues of living people in order to diagnose them. The test results are then sent to other doctors who treat the patient.

Of course, they also open corpses, but the main work of the pathologist takes place behind a microscope, and not at a dissecting table.

Myth 2. Pathologists work to solve crimes

Another common mistake. After watching crime shows like C.S.I. or "Think Like a Criminal," people are starting to call those who examine the corpses of murder victims pathologists.

But in fact, the latter are engaged in autopsies of people who have died from diseases. And specialists who open up people who died a violent death or under suspicious circumstances are called

forensic experts. It is they who help in solving crimes, not pathologists.

Myth 3. Pathologists eat in the dissection room

working with dead bodies specialists are traditionally considered cynical and not prone to squeamishness. That is why people far from medicine attribute various oddities to them. For example, the ability to eat by placing plates right next to a dead body.

But this, of course, is also a myth. Not a single person in their right mind will eat near a corpse, because it is simply unhygienic. Pathologists do not eat in the sectional hall - there is a dining room for this.

Myth 4. Pathologists hear the cries, voices and breathing of the dead

Another common plot for creepypastas and horror films. The medical student stays in the morgue on night duty, and the old watchman demands that he never leave the staff room before the first roosters.

The young specialist, of course, does not believe and refuses to hide in a shelter, and therefore his dead all night they frighten with loud sniffling, wheezing, groans, articulate speech, and sometimes - and stomping in corridors. If the corpses of small children are present in the morgue, they drive the victim crazy with annoying crying.

In the morning, a gray-haired student is found locked in the staff room, the entire door of which is covered with nail marks.

In less fantastic tales, the dead still cry, growl, moan and wheeze, but not because of otherworldly forces, but because of natural causes. And still scare pathologists.

Really a corpse really Maybe make sounds. First, when the pathologist moves or flips the body on the table, the remaining air is sometimes loudly expelled from the lungs. Secondly, the gases released during the decomposition process can produce noise.

But, of course, they are not enough to imitate speech, crying, screaming, roaring and others. horrordescribed in horror stories. Sound sooner recalls sigh.

Myth 5. Periodically, pathologists inadvertently dissect living people

Another extremely popular cliché in movies and scary stories. A dead body is brought to the pathologist, he begins to cut the "patient", but he suddenly turns out to be alive! If the doctor has not gone too far, the unfortunate man is saved. In a darker version of such a story, a man dies from scalpel wounds, this time for good.

In fact, such incidents in the modern world are simply impossible.

Here in the 19th century people are very were afraid be buried alive: due to the imperfection of medicine, then it was possible to mistake a person who fell into a coma for a dead person. In lethargic sleep, breathing and heartbeat are weakened, and doctors, determined the presence of signs of vital activity with a mirror, thrust under the nose, could be mistaken.

But now doctors are able to accurately definewhether the person is alive or dead. Cadaverous drying, spots, muscle rigor, Beloglazov's symptom, when the pupil transforms when the eyeball is squeezed into the gap, the absence of neuronal activity on the encephalogram - all these are absolutely reliable signs that he will never wakes up.

Myth 6. Pathologists provide a place in the morgue to store bananas

old bike, walking in Runet since the mid-90s. Allegedly, mortuary employees sometimes provide their cells to merchants of nearby markets - to store perishable goods. Well, the times were hungry, the pathologists wanted to earn extra money, so why not?

But this is also a myth. Employees of the Office for Combating Economic Crimes back in 1994 refuted all rumors, stating that there were no such facts in their practice.

Myth 7. Pathologists illegally sell organs

Another stereotypical way to make an extra coin, which is attributed to pathologists - organ trafficking. They brought a dead body for an autopsy - we extract everything of value, sell it on the black market, get the currency. Perfect job!

The underground trade in organs really exists, and this is a big problem for law enforcement agencies in many countries of the world. But for the black market "merchants" take away goods are not from the dead, but from living people. Naturally, the “donors” die in this case.

But in dead bodies, tissues quickly become unusable due to autolysis - when the cells begin to digest themselves. To extract an organ from a corpse, you need to perform an operation immediately after death, in a hospital. And by the time the body will fall pathologists, he will no longer be in the right condition to carry out transplantation.

Myth 8. The work of a pathologist is dangerous due to miasma and cadaveric poison

Some are convinced that the work of a pathologist is quite dangerous occupation. After all, the dead spread cadaveric poison, miasma, various viruses and bacteria. Therefore, if you work with the dead without a chemical protection suit, you can quickly join them.

Perhaps those who think so have revisited zombie horror films. Or playing too much Warcraft as the undead exuding plague clouds.

This myth is very old and is found even in classical literature. Turgenev, for example, in the book "Fathers and Sons" Yevgeny Bazarov died, having become infected during the autopsy of the body of a typhoid patient.

This myth comes from the “theory of miasms”, which until the 19th century explained origin of diseases. Allegedly, from the disgusting smell of dead flesh and sewage, “contagious beginnings” are formed in the air, which spread typhoid fever, cholera, malaria and other misfortunes. Later, with the development of science and the discovery of microbes, from this theories refused.

Doctors now know that the vast majority of infectious agents dies along with the carrier. Some bacteria and viruses, however, can live in a corpse for several more hours, especially if it is stored in a refrigerator. For example, a pathologist may still get infected from a "patient" with tuberculosis, if he neglects safety precautions. But this is a rarity.

Turgenevsky Bazarov, by the way, there is no way to pick up typhus from a corpse could not, because the mechanism of transmission of its pathogen is fecal-oral. Mostly through water - when healthy people drink from a source where the feces of a sick person got into.

And the creepy-sounding "cadaveric poison" is actually a collective name for substances like putrescine and cadaverine, which are produced by the breakdown of protein. They have a disgusting smell, but low toxicity, and they cannot be poisoned by inhalation.