title: Postmortem: How Medical Examiners Explain Suspicious Deaths (Fieldwork Encounters and Discoveries)
author:  Stefan Timmermans 
description: Controversial award-winning sociologist Timmermans (<i>Sudden Death and the Myth of CPR</i>) looks at the work of medical examiners in this intriguing study, which serves as a welcome antidote to the almost endless stream of true-crime memoirs by MEs across the country. Timmermans spent years as a field observer inside a large ME office in an effort to understand everything about their practices. He observes that the decision to label a death suspicious and thus to be reviewed by an ME means that "the social order of dying" has been disturbed and the ME's job is, in a sense, to manage the resulting uncertainty and possible danger (of, say, a previously unrecognized infectious disease). The portrait emerging from the author's study of the important social role MEs play is a useful corrective to the media-inspired image of the all-knowing and perfect CSI technicians. Some of the writing is not for a mass audience ("a meta-analysis of clinical trials trumps a randomized, double-blind clinical trial... "), but Timmermans's detailed look at the notorious Louise Woodward "nanny trial" and other topical subjects (such as organ donation) make this a must-read for anyone interested in learning what postmortems really involve. <i>(May)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  ![cover](resources/_cover_.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  # Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### W. G. Aitchison Robertson
  
  
  This page formatted 2007 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com
  
  * [PREFACE TO EIGHTH EDITION](afor_split_2.html#1_0_2)
  
  
  
  
  
  * [PART I. FORENSIC MEDICINE](afor_split_2.html#1_1)
  
  
    * [I.—CRIMES](afor_split_3.html#1_1_1)
  
  
  * [II.—MEDICAL EVIDENCE](afor_split_4.html#1_1_2)
  
  
  * [III.—PERSONAL IDENTITY](afor_split_5.html#1_1_3)
  
  
  * [IV.—EXAMINATION OF PERSONS FOUND DEAD](afor_split_6.html#1_1_4)
  
  
  * [V.—MODES OF SUDDEN DEATH](afor_split_7.html#1_1_5)
  
  
  * [VI.—SIGNS OF DEATH](afor_split_8.html#1_1_6)
  
  
  * [VII.—DEATH FROM ANÆSTHETICS, ETC.](afor_split_9.html#1_1_7)
  
  
  * [VIII.—PRESUMPTION OF DEATH; SURVIVORSHIP](afor_split_10.html#1_1_8)
  
  
  * [IX.—ASSAULT, MURDER, MANSLAUGHTER, ETC.](afor_split_11.html#1_1_9)
  
  
  * [X.—WOUNDS AND MECHANICAL INJURIES](afor_split_12.html#1_1_10)
  
  
  * [XI.—CONTUSED WOUNDS AND INJURIES UNACCOMPANIED BY
  
  
  SOLUTION OF CONTINU