Pathology: The Aspect of Death Summary and Analysis

Konner's trip to Galen by subway the day after his obstetrics and gynecology rotation ended was accompanied by severe gastric distress. Ironically, he advised mothers in labor to push like they were going to the bathroom and now found he had an irresistible need to do so as well, as if he forecast his own destiny. He recalled African experiences where husbands followed a ritual of inducing their own constipation when their wives went into labor as a form of sympathetic synthetic labor. He finally reached a bathroom to expel his diarrhea. At the hospital he began neuropathology rotation under Dr. Mattingly. She took him to the lab where Dr. Brennan had sent his patients' brain samples for analysis. The study of tissue and corpses was the final destination of sick patients. Konner...