Autopsy: Life and Death

Lesson 3: Poison (1x3)

Air date: Jan 18, 2006

When von Hagens and Lee address the subject of poisoning, they are not thinking of a murder mystery. Von Hagens dissects the body of a dialysis patient who died of kidney failure to reveal that we are more likely to die of internal poisoning than by a surreptitious dose of arsenic. Lee explains how the body can be contaminated if critical organs like the kidneys and liver malfunction and fail to filter out poisonous byproducts of metabolism.