While writing my book I needed to know what coroners put under their noses when they do an autopsy to make the horrible reek tolerable. You might have seen this stuff being used in the movie "Silence of the Lambs" and the T.V. show "Quincy". I needed to know what that stuff was. This was a rare example of where the internet totally failed me. Google found me many "facts", but they conflicted with each other. Finally I opened the phone book and called a REAL coroner who works at the morgue in St. Louis. She informed me that there is no such substance. "Coroners in real life just have to get use to the smell." She said. "As far as I know, there is no substance on the market you can put under you nose to block the reek of a body. If there was, I'm sure we would be using it."
Since that's what was used in "Quincy", I asked the real-life coroner about it. She said Vicks would probably make the smell worse by open nasal passages wider. There is just nothing you can do to block the smell of a body. You just need to get used to it.
It makes for a good visual without having to go too much out of your way, as a screenwriter, to indicate that there is some stank stank happening right now, even if it's clearly non-factual. Most professions watch their fictional portrayal on TV and film and can only roll their eyes. Doctors, attorneys, anyone. I'm an interpreter by profession. The one film that comes to mind concerning my profession, The Interpreter, starring Nicole Kidman, was almost unwatchable. Within the first 15 min I was like, "Wrong. Wrong. WRONG! Fired. License revoked. Barred from the U.N. building for life..." Just terrible. If you're not an interpreter, you'll never notice how much of the story is just story and nothing to do with how it really works.
That would be a good opportunity to bring a little more realism into your story. Maybe have a character try it only to be informed by the coroner as you now are. Details like this can add some great realism and flavor.
I wanted to do just that, but my book was way too long and it needed to be cut back. In the story a little girl needs to remove keys from a rotting corpse. Originally I had her father give her Vick's to put under her nose. Later in the story her uncle uses Vick's to block a skunk's smell. To keep it simple and short I had the characters shove cotton balls in their nostrils. However that only blocked the smells a little.
Febreeze, when it was first brought to market, didn't have any scent, it just inhibited smell receptors. It wasn't a great seller until a scent was added. (So how do you smell the scent?) If you have ever been to a second-hand clothes store that doesn't use Febreeze, you know how bad second-hand clothes smell. Here in Nova Scotia, we have a chain of very popular second-hand clothes stores called Frenchies where all the clothes are sprayed with Febreeze. Quite acceptable. Could work in a morgue, maybe?
A strong minty balm? Sometimes a similar chemical is used that smells like a dead body, to build a tolerance to the smell. Best might be using a respirator or gas-mask if you don't mind having them carry the equipment such as these. You could try soaking those thicker cloth masks used in Asian countries to filter out pollution, in a strong smelling liquid or strong deodorant. Or you could simply plug your nostrils with earplugs (clean and new) could block off the smell. Vicks could cause lung damage.
In line with what @Wreybies said, I was watching Arrow and my bf, who is an IRL software developer, went bonkers because Felicity Smoak told Oliver that she had a "teraflop of data to go through". He has questioned the IT stuff in NCIS as well. But on topic. Swimmers use nose clips to stop them inhaling water, won't one of them do?
That would work too. But I have already written the scene: "...My nostrils were sealed with cotton, but the penetrating reek still weakly reached my sinesses through my open mouth. I nearly threw up."
That's vivid! It almost made me feel sick too. Don't change it! (I do think there's a spelling mistake in sinuses, though. If so, do change it.)
If even the coroner has said nothing is used, why are you still trying to write something in that's clearly untrue, as well as something that's giving you problems? lol. Describe the smell, for sure, but where's the need with sealing your nose with cotton?
A sense of smell is one of the doctor's tools during his autopsy. Same logic applies during farming. I don't clean the area using pine fresh scent, I use a neutral-scented detergent/disinfectant [whatever] because odour is a warning signal.
Sounds to me like in this case it's to emphasise that the person is either a greenhorn or not a coroner at all.
This ^ A coroner would not mask one's sense of smell because it might matter in the autopsy, for example some toxins have a particular smell. In the US, a face shield plus an N95 respiratory mask is used to protect the coroner from aerosolized pathogens like tuberculosis and blood and body fluid splashes. They might only use the N95 when they are using a bone saw, but the face shield would stay on. As far as the odor, you just get used to it. Even if you are not used to it, an odor like that of a decomposing body would become attenuated as you work.
When dealing with dead livestock/wildlife - sometimes really dead..., (e.g bloated dead sheep washed up on a beach, or the worst I've encountered a freezer container off a cargo ship, that had been in the sea for a couple of months, and had to e broken open and unloaded by hand so it could be torched up for disposal -it was full of semi rotten carcasses) My colleagues and I would usually dab a bit of peppermint oil on a neckerchief and tie it across our faces. You don't want to block your nasal passages with ear plugs or nose clips because that means you have to breathe through your mouth, and shortly you'll be able to taste dead stuff...which is a lot worse than smelling it However coroners and for that matter cops generally don't outside of fiction because a) smell might tell you something about manner of death and b) you don't want to contaminate the evidence with any chemicals brought in
Very good question. I wanted to show the little girl putting cotton in her nose (and having it help a little with the smell) so that much later in the book I could have another character use the same technique after the little girl is sprayed by a skunk. Establishing the use of cotton in one scene helped establish its use in another.
Why does that need to be "established" at all? Just have your character use cotton in the later scene with the skunk if that's what you want. Is the skunk thing supposed to be climactic or otherwise quite significant?
I can't imagine it would be useful for the reason i mentioned above - if you block the nose you have to inhale the bad oudour through the mouth were you begin to tate it instead of smelling it
Technically much of what we taste is actually what we smell. I dunno - can we actually taste air particles on the tongue? Are you sure we don't "taste" it in as much as gas is bound to rise and fill the passage it goes through, hence going through the mouth would mean it's gonna get into contact with the nasal cavity too? @GingerCoffee you're the only scientist I'm aware of on here. Help us out
I'm not sure on the science - i just know from bitter experience of dealing with dead and decomposing animals that blocking your nasal passages makes it worse
I had a friend (well, a number of them) who were EMT/paramedic/ambulance critters. Due to the laws of the state I worked in, a doctor had to pronounce a body dead unless the head was at least one yard distant from the shoulders, which meant that the medics got called out on a number of things that they just could not rectify. He said that they carried cheap, foul, nasty cigars in their ambulance to smoke in such situations.
thats partly because the smoke keeps the blowflies away - since i don't smoke ive been known to tuck a joss stick or two in a headband when dealing with something really gross The container full of rotten meat takes some beating, but the time we had to cut up a dead horse with a chainsaw in order to carry it off a beach where there was only access on foot probably takes the biscuit for pure Yeeeuuuch factor Dead dolphins are another one best avoided because they bloat really badly and the smell of the fishy gunk that gets splattered everywhere when they burst is indescribably horrible - if you get it on your clothes its best to bin everything you are wearing and start over, as it never seems to wash out propperly even on a boil wash
