Contagion Read Online Free PDF

“Do you think we ought to isolate this case?” Laurie asked nervously.
         “I can’t see any reason to,” Jack said. “Besides, I’ve already started, and I’ll be careful to avoid throwing any of the organs around the room. But I’ll tell you what we should do: alert the lab to be mighty careful with the specimens until we have a diagnosis.”
         “Maybe I’d better ask Bingham’s opinion,” Laurie said.
         “Oh, that would be helpful,” Jack said sarcastically. “Then we’ll have the blind leading the blind.”
         “Don’t be disrespectful,” Laurie said. “He is the chief.”
         “I don’t care if he’s the Pope,” Jack said. “I think I should just get it done, the sooner the better. If Bingham or even Calvin gets involved it will drag on all morning.”
         “All right,” Laurie said. “Maybe you’re right. But let me see any abnormality. I’ll be on table three.”
         Laurie left to do her own case. Jack took a scalpel from Vinnie and was about to make the incision when he noticed that Vinnie had moved away.
         “Where are you going to watch this from, Queens?” Jack asked. “You’re supposed to be helping.”
         “I’m a little nervous,” Vinnie admitted.
         “Oh, come on, man,” Jack said. “You’ve been at more autopsies than I have. Get your Italian ass over here. We’ve got work to do.”
         Jack worked quickly but smoothly. He handled the internal organs gently and was meticulously careful about the use of instruments when either his or Vinnie’s hands were in the field.
         “Whatcha got?” Chet McGovern asked, looking over Jack’s shoulder. Chet was also an associate medical examiner, having been hired in the same month as Jack. Of all the colleagues he’d become the closest to Jack, since they shared both a common office and the social circumstance of being single males. But Chet had never been married and at thirty-six, he was five years Jack’s junior.
         “Something interesting,” Jack said. “The mystery disease of the week. And it’s a humdinger. This poor bastard didn’t have a chance.”
         “Any ideas?” Chet asked. His trained eye took in the gangrene and the hemorrhages under the skin.
         “I got a lot of ideas,” Jack said. “But let me show you the internal. I’d appreciate your opinion.”
         “Is there something I should see?” Laurie called from table three. She’d noticed Jack conversing with Chet.
         “Yeah, come on over,” Jack said. “No use going through this more than once.”
         Laurie sent Sal to the sink to wash out the intestines on her case, then stepped over to table one.
         “The first thing I want you to look at is the lymphatics I dissected in the throat,” Jack said. He had retracted the skin of the neck from the chin to the collarbone.
         “No wonder autopsies take so long around here,” a voice boomed in the confined space.
         All eyes turned toward Dr. Calvin Washington, the deputy chief. He was an intimidating six-foot-seven, two-hundred-and-fifty-pound African-American man who’d passed up a chance to play NFL football to go to medical school.
         “What the hell is going on around here?” he demanded half in jest. “What do you people think this is, a holiday?”
         “Just pooling resources,” Laurie said. “We’ve got an unknown infectious case that appears to be quite an aggressive microbe.”
         “So I heard,” Calvin said. “I already got a call from the administrator over at the Manhattan General. He’s justly concerned. What’s the verdict?”
         “A bit too soon to tell,” Jack said. “But we’ve got a lot of pathology here.”
         Jack quickly summarized for Calvin what was known of the history and pointed out the positive findings on the external exam. Then he started back on the internal, indicating the