Academic Forensic Pathology最新文献

Medicolegal death investigation systems, which generally fall within one of three types-medical examiner, coroner, or law-enforcement-led systems-investigate deaths that are unnatural or suspicious. The current quality of cause of death statistics on deaths investigated within medicolegal death investigation systems globally limits effective public health response. A starting point to strengthening global medicolegal death investigation systems and improving the quality of cause and manner of death reported to civil registration systems is through a strong legal framework. Two resources, the United Nations Statistics Division Guidelines on the Legislative Framework for Civil Registration, Vital Statistics and Identity Management and the Global Health Advocacy Incubator Legal and Regulatory Toolkit for Civil Registration, Vital Statistics and Identity Management, present recommendations and provide guidance to country stakeholders in reviewing and revising their medicolegal death investigation legal frameworks. Physician determination of cause and manner of death, defined criteria for case referral to the medicolegal death investigation system, an amendment process, and investigation collaboration are four core considerations for medicolegal death investigation system legal frameworks. A strong medicolegal death investigation legal framework is a necessary starting point, but it is not sufficient for ensuring the timely, accurate, and complete reporting of cause and manner of death in national vital statistics.

Synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists (SCRA) share minimal structural similarities to tetrahydrocannabinol or themselves. Due to their heterogeneous structures and the rapid appearance and disappearance of new SCRA on the drug scene, the quantitation of SCRA has not been attempted extensively. We present a wide series of SCRA concentrations based on a single-point calibration using peak height ratios for the extracted ion chromatogram of the protonated precursor ion against that of the internal standard. These concentrations are viewed as indicative only given the use of a single concentration "calibrator" based on the response of a deuterated analogue of a structurally related compound. What is of note, is that, despite the potential differences in potency the majority of SCRA seem to have relatively similar concentrations in postmortem cases.

Modern forensic medicine was introduced into China during the first decades of the 20th century. The members of China's first generation of medicolegal experts were soon advocating that medical expertise play a greater role in police and judicial officials' investigations of suspicious death and homicide cases. While forensic reform in China had parallels with developments in other contemporary societies in which physicians were pushing for a greater role in the law, this process unfolded in China in unique ways, against the backdrop of an older tradition of forensic science that had developed under the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). Central to this tradition was the Records on the Washing Away of Wrongs, a handbook of forensic practice that was written in the 13th century and saw numerous editions and expansions over subsequent centuries. Death investigation in early 20th-century China was defined by "forensic pluralism," a situation in which the different body examination methods and standards of forensic proof associated with the Washing Away of Wrongs and modern forensic medicine were both accepted by officialdom and society. This article untangles the complexities of forensic practice during this period through the rather unexceptional exchange over a case of suspected drowning that occurred between local officials in Hebei province and Lin Ji (1897-1951), director of the Beiping University Medical School Institute of Legal Medicine. This case reveals the different regimes of forensic knowledge and practice that were used in China during this period as well as the sites at which they interacted.

Forensic investigations using DNA analysis have been grown rapidly. Samples retrieved from crime scene may be exposed to different conditions before proceeding. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of different grades of temperature and burn on DNA extraction and typing.

Methods: Seven mL of blood and four mL of semen were collected from each volunteer. Effects of temperature grades (100 °C, 50 °C, 37 °C, 4 °C, -20 °C, and burn) on blood and seminal stain were tested.

Results: Bloodstains exposed to temperature grades 100 °C, 50 °C, 37 °C, 4 °C, and -20 °C can be identified using preliminary test while burnt blood stain cannot. Seminal stains exposed to temperature grades 37 °C, 4 °C, and -20 °C can be identified by Florence test while those exposed to 100 °C, 50 °C, and burn cannot. Blood and seminal stains exposed to temperature grades 100 °C, 50 °C, and burn show marked reduction in DNA concentration while maximum DNA conc could be recovered from stains exposed to temperature grade temperature. Both blood and seminal DNA was affected only in case of burn without significant difference between THO1 and Amelogenin primers.

Conclusion: High environmental temperature affect the quantity of extracted DNA from different stains but less effect on the quality of extracted DNA. Burn affects both preliminary test, DNA quantity, and quality in stains.

Growing attention to the philosophy of forensic science in recent decades has sometimes included the question: "what kind of science is forensic science"? Yet there has been little discussion of how that question has been differently construed in terms of period, place, and prevailing anxieties. Following an examination of the unique character this question must have in an American legal context, this article reviews three modes/phases of response, rooted successively in individual authority, comprehensive method, and institutions of flexible problem-solving. The conclusion applies this complex legacy in two ways: first to clarify areas of incoherence and tension in recent attempts to underwrite forensic sciences, and second to supply a fuller framework for Max Houck's argument for the essentially historical character of forensic science.

Established in 1929, Northwestern University's Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (SCDL), America's first independent forensic crime laboratory, undertook a wide range of scientific case work during the 1930s, including toxicology, firearms identification, polygraph testing, the analysis of questioned documents and bacteriology; its mission being to provide Chicago with a world-class forensic science service. Alongside this mission, however, a key ambition of the SCDL's founders was to forensically educate police officers, legal professionals, and the general public. Convinced that American police were largely ignorant of scientific aids to crime detection and that the public's lack of forensic awareness led to the destruction and contamination of crime scenes, the SCDL attempted to fashion itself as a "school for manhunters." But, while the laboratory's ambitious program of public talks, scientific demonstrations, detective schools, expositions, and radio programs were intended to foster the creation of both a scientifically savvy public and policemen on par with those to be found in Europe, the SCDL encountered a number of significant hurdles to achieving these goals, including the hostility of some high-ranking police officials.

Introduction: Injury patterns in pedestrians struck by motor vehicles were described in medical literature first published almost a half century ago. "Classical" triads of injury distribution were described for adults (skull-pelvis-extremity) and subsequently applied to children (head-hip or pelvis-distal femur/knee joint). Notably, these classical triads were derived from two publications reporting clinical observations of only 11 patients, all of whom were adults.

Methods: A systematic literature review was conducted using Medline, CINAHL, EMBASE, and Cochrane to determine the evidence-base for motor vehicle collision (MVC)-pedestrian injury "triads" and other trauma patterns described for pedestrians in the adult and pediatric age groups.

Results: Of the 1540 full-text articles identified in the review, 56 articles published in English met the inclusion criteria, that is, motor vehicle-pedestrian collision resulting in specific, fatal injuries determined by postmortem examinations. There were variations in injury patterns that differed from the "classical" triads. These differences likely stem from advances in vehicle design and safety features which have affected the nature and distribution of injuries.

Discussion: Further research on the correlation of specific injuries sustained by pedestrians of different ages with various types of vehicles and impacts are needed to assess the validity of previously observed injury patterns in relation to the current motor vehicle fleet. Delineation of injury patterns can assist health care teams in trauma management. Vehicle manufacturers and government regulators can better assess whether the introduction of advanced driver assistance features designed to protect pedestrians when struck will be effective in reducing severe injuries. In forensic pathology practice, knowledge of pedestrian injury patterns based on data representative of impacts involving modern vehicles can provide MVC death investigators the means to determine MVC dynamics and pedestrian kinematics.