From one of NZ’s best-known pathologists, has come a new book about the unlikely, extraordinary, and tragic ways humans meet their end.
Dr Cynric Temple-Camp is one of New Zealand’s leading pathologists. Over the years he has worked on many famous and private cases, the more extraordinary of which were profiled in his #1 bestselling book The Cause of Death (published in August 2017).
“People imagine the job of a pathologist is only to crudely carve up the dead, but it’s not entirely true. They spend much of their time investigating, diagnosing and helping the ‘quick’ – as the Bible calls people who are alive,” explained Temple-Camp.
In his new book The Quick and the Dead, Temple-Camp exposes the fascinating world of a pathologist. Through a series of true stories and cases he’s been involved from early on in his career in Africa through to his time in New Zealand, he leads the reader into a world of disease and death as he seeks answers for those who were unlucky, and those still alive to tell the tale.
While some doctors prefer personal contact with their patients and administering care to the living Temple-Camp admits to preferring the ‘hard science’ of pathology – the observation, testing, gathering of evidence, making deductions – search for the scientific answers to questions posed by disease and death.
“I have to confess that I am an aficionado of death,” said Temple-Camp. “I’m fascinated by all aspects of death and the dead and I suppose that is why I am so fortunate to land up in my profession. Wherever I have travelled in the world I have sought out the dead and looked at how the locals treat their dead.”
The Quick and The Dead: True stories of life and death from a New Zealand pathologist is published by HarperCollins New Zealand and will be released in early July.
