Thursday, July 15, 2010

T. H. White

-- Inventor of blood spatter analysis.
The grass all round was speckled with their blood -- little spots like those on trout, but with a kind of tail on each spot, like a tadpole.
(The Ill-Made Knight, Chapter VII).

Not many people know about White's second career as a crime-scene investigator.

5 comments:

Another Kiwi said...

For real CSI, of course, he'd look at it and say "This blood has Floraxilifalla fencii pollen in it and there's only one place inside 50 miles that that could come from"

Smut Clyde said...

In my day, of course, there was no CSI and we only had the Dr Thorndyke stories to inform us about the four different species of duckweed growing in the ditches of England, i.e "The water in these lungs contain Greater Duckweed and the pond-snail Succinea putris, and there's only one ditch within 50 miles where those grow".

Kids today have no idea.

Hamish Mack said...

Or 112 year old Agatha Christie to use a 60 year old Belgian to tell us how ze young folk carry on.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Gotta re-read TOaFK... it's been too long.

I like the bit about the marsh folk, rumored to have webbed feet and pale bellies, like those of frogs.

mikey said...

Nah. Thanks anyway.

I'll just Kipple....