Medicine: Post Mortem

Scowling hugely, New York City's Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Charles Norris recently stormed into the "House of Breathless Men," as morgue attendants euphemistically call their nose-stinging structure. On Dr. Norris' mind was an order from Mayor Joseph Vincent ("Holy Joe") McKee—who, to spare taxes and borrow money from bankers, is trying to cut city operating costs—to reduce his department budget by 20%. Before Dr. Norris' eyes was the barren poverty of his morgue office—a small room, cheap furniture, a microscope, reagent bottles. The floor is bare. But in an adjacent laboratory...