Banished from the medical community One brilliant German forensic pathologist Johann Casper, his nascent methods on The rate of rot made him a cunning medico-criminalist The heady chemical stench of decay set him free To discover putrefaction patterns others failed to see Internal and external bacteria coalesced And illustrated their wisdom in a semi-liquid mess Professor of Forensic Pathology Disgraced by Berlin doctors Misunderstood forensic genius Nineteenth century medicine Rejected forensics and outlawed him Amonst reeking gassy corpses Casper hatched his dark science Medical examiners now unite Bring Casper's Dictum to scientific light Casper's Dictum: "A week in air-two weeks in water Two weeks in water-eight weeks in ground!" Ballooning stiffs and liquescent corpses Bursting models for Casper's Dictum Streptococci and Clostridium Welchii Battle for post mortem bacterial supremacy Autolytic conversion hosts and breeds While putrefactive ooze squirts from the seams Casper draped in a rotten viscera Popping bleb and bullae sebum Navigating the semi-fluid black mess Charting decay for his seminal dictum He noticed that corpses found submerged Decay half as fast as those uninterred Exhumed carcasses revealed to him Four times less rot than those in the swim He penned a text in 1850 Called Forensic Dissection (naturally) His dictum was touted a medicolegal success Even Rudolf Virchow was begrudgingly impressed Casper's Dictum: "A week in air-two weeks in water Two weeks in water-eight weeks in ground!" Ballooning stiffs and liquescent corpses Bursting models for Casper's Dictum Sulphemethaemoglobin stains, putridity marbles Blood is haemolysed The unyielding hot logic of decay persists Casper is immortalized Before predation can strip the corpse clean Casper graces the grisly crime scene From waterlogged stiffs soughing their flesh To exhumed partially skeletonized mulch His ghastly rule of thumb is well known From recently deceased to sun-bleached bone Forensics and anatomy are hideously wed Casper's science of the dead