The dead do not speak. However, when I stand before a body lying quietly on the autopsy table, many emotions well up inside me.
I believe that forensic autopsies are not for the deceased, but rather for the living. —— Hajime Nishio
Sudden death from thrombosis caused by economy-class syndrome; suffocation while the mouth and nose are still unobstructed; fatal cardiac tamponade caused by a blood loss of only 300 ml; internal organ perforation from a car crash steering wheel impact; kidney failure triggered by subcutaneous bleeding from a beating; cases of solitary death by hanging with a towel; examining the skull base and eyeballs to confirm child abuse rather than an accident; mapping death out of two skeletal remains...
Where you and I see a horrifying corpse, a forensic pathologist sees scenes of human nature.
Death lays bare the lessons of life, making the act of living meaningful!
A professional forensic pathologist who has autopsied over 3,000 bodies shares 40 true cases. The scalpel cuts through the corpse to unveil the truth behind death.
With an aging population and an increase in single-occupant and unmarried households, a "society of high mortality" has arrived. In modern Japan, for example, one out of every forty deceased individuals requires a forensic autopsy.
Forensic autopsies serve two purposes. The first is criminal investigation: for individuals who died involving criminal events, the information recorded after the autopsy is provided to the police as investigation material and used as evidence in trials. The second is to understand the cause of death, especially for those who die of unknown causes, echoing the societal phenomenon of a growing number of people living alone.
The purpose of an autopsy is not only to ascertain the cause of death; more proactively, it allows the family of the deceased to understand and prevent potential diseases. If an autopsy reveals that the death was caused by an infectious or hereditary disease, those associated with the deceased can avoid sharing the same fate.
The author of this book has witnessed bizarre and eccentric cases, sharing his own experiences and the lessons learned from autopsies. The bodies of the deceased present themselves in various forms. Glimpsing the traces of their existence, understanding what they encountered, and imagining the situations they fell into through their deaths can help us examine our own lives—which the author considers the greatest honor of working in forensic medicine.
The book begins with a brief overview of a forensic pathologist's work and the types of cases that require an autopsy. It then presents forty stories of cases that left a deep impression on the author during his forensic career. Some reflect the characteristics and shifts of modern society, such as the rise in cases of solitary death and child abuse, as well as deaths triggered by caregiving issues for sick family members, alongside unusual suicides or accidental deaths. In the final section, the author reflects deeply on forensic work, sharing his psychological feelings about facing the dead and exploring causes of death daily, as well as his touching realizations regarding life and death.
About the Author
Hajime Nishio
Born in Osaka Prefecture in 1962. Chief Professor of the Department of Forensic Medicine at Hyogo Medical University. After graduating from Kagawa Medical University (now the Faculty of Medicine, Kagawa University), he attended the graduate school of the same university. He later served as a professor of forensic medicine at Osaka Medical College before joining Hyogo Medical University in 2009. He is in charge of forensic autopsies for six cities and one town in Hyogo Prefecture. In addition to researching sudden death, he is also involved in forensic scene investigations and clinical medical examinations. To date, he has autopsied a total of 3,000 bodies, conducting 200 to 300 autopsies a year. He is the author of Evidence of the Corpse: A Japanese Forensic Pathologist Unveils the Truth of Solitary, Impoverished, Aging, and Unequal Deaths on the Autopsy Table. He has published papers related to sudden death, striving to promote the development of clinical medicine using knowledge from forensic medicine sites.
About the Translator
Min-Chieh Yen
Graduated with a master's degree from the Department of English, Tamkang University, and was a doctoral candidate in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, National Taiwan University. Her translated works include Fun in Japan—Kyoto, Fun in Japan—Shikoku, Awaji Island, Shodoshima, and Resetting the End of Life to Zero.