Journal of Forensic Chemistry and Toxicology

Most of Indian Urban Youth are keen of bulky bicep muscles, are getting misguided by online advertisements of “Creatine Creating Muscles”. Supplement abuse is rampant in the fitness world. Enthusiasts often take them without proper clearance from medical professionals and often feel the consequences later, in the end of the month. Relevant scientific studies warns the Harmful Effects on kidneys of even healthy youth, associated with consuming creatine supplement for creating muscular body building alongwith physical workouts by weight lifting in Gymnasiums. The doctors get baffled to see otherwise healthy, young males hospitalised for an avoidable emergency, by regulating creatine use only after medical expert’s supervision and monitoring.

Background: The passage of electric current through human body can produce multiple effects, commonly known as Electrocution. The passage of electric current through the body produces wide range of effects, varying from insignificant localized spasm, little or no contact burns, fatality with little or no burns or extreme severe burning.

Case Report: A detailed history of the incident revealed that the bike rider skid and fell on the water logged road in rainy season and came in contact with the high tension wire and was electrocuted. The second person tried to attend to the bike driver and he also came in contact with the same wire and died instantly. Autopsy revealed external electrocution injuries on both deceased. Both these deaths were accidental in nature and were preventable. Histopathological examination of the electric contact point showed elongation and streaming of nuclei with focal inter-epidermal and epidermal-dermal separation.

Conclusion: This present article focuses on need for proper development of water drainage system especially during rainy season and also to generate public awareness regarding regular supervision of roadside Electric pole and wires which could prevent similar accidents. A detailed history regarding the incidence, scene visit, circumstantial evidence, statement of witness and proper postmortem examination with the histopathological examination are recommended prior to concluding the cause of death in case of alleged death due to electrocution. The data can be used for further planning and implementation of adequate measures to prevent accidents and thereby benefit the society.

Simulation has been widely adopted as a training and assessment tool in medical education. Conventional teaching methods may be inadequate to properly train healthcare providers for rare but potentially lethal events in Toxicology such as managing associated polytrauma in alcoholic drink and drive cases, Acute Brain stroke due to cocaine toxicity, acute coronary syndrome in Cannabis and cardio-respiratory arrest in Opioid abuse. We have observed that Simulation based training, by enhancing provider skills, can subsequently decrease medical errors and increase patient safety.

Drug Facilitated Crimes is an emerging discipline in the field of forensic toxicology. The most widespread DFCs are Drug Facilitated Sexual Assaults (DFSA); sexual crimes which occurred with involvement and administration of drugs. Drugs such as flunitrazepam, lorazepam, GHB, nitrazepam, midazolam, temazepam, ketamine are added to the food/drink of the victim during any party, or at the bus stands or railway stations without the knowledge of the victim and inhibits person’s ability to resist and prevent her from remembering the assault. These drugs being depressants in nature cause symptoms of drowsiness, impaired perception, nausea, vomiting, unconsciousness, anterograde amnesia and mislead the police to form an assumption that the person has only drunk and not drugged. The metabolism of these drugs is too rapid and the drugs get excreted from the body before the incident is reported to the Police Officer. These fast-acting drugs therefore leads to various problems in the detection and analysis of drug facilitated crimes. The paper focuses on such problems and challenges associated with these drug facilitated sexual assault cases.

DNA as an evidence plays a very important role in establishment of human identity through genetic profiling both in criminal and civil disputes. DNA has emerged as a powerful investigative tool as no two persons can have same DNA profile except for identical twin. The proper collection of any biological samples is must for effective utilization of DNA as medicolegal evidence. Single biological sample such as blood, semen, saliva, and hairs etc without any contamination can easily identify a single person. But, if there is mixing/contamination of the biological samples or there is insufficient sample collection from the object or surface for genetic profiling then the results can be ambiguous. In such situations, reports are inconclusive, also it could be difficult to exclude genetic sample of perpetrator from such mix profile results. Furthermore, the new age treatment therapies such as In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF), Blood transfusion, bone marrow transplantation and organ transplants can also hinder to present the actual identity or genetic profile of a person due to genetic mixing. Therefore, biological samples collected from crime scene can either match with suspect or acquit him/her from suspicion. Modern DNA forensic methods are powerful and sensitive, carelessness or ignorance in proper history and handling procedures for biological evidence can result in an unfit sample for analysis.

Introduction: There has been an increase in the number of liver cirrhosis worldwide. Liver cirrhosis in forensic practice is common enough. Medical experts diagnose liver cirrhosis according to morphological data. At the same time this problem in medicolegal analytical reports and publications are still small. The purpose of our research consisted in characteristic of liver cirrhoses by forensic medical examinations for the 12-year period from 2007 to 2018 in the city of Moscow.

Materials and methods. We studied 3.371 case of death from liver cirrhosis in proportion to the number of non-violent deaths. We analyzed the acts of forensic autopsies and histological studies performed at the Bureau of Forensic Medicine of the Department of Health of Moscow during 2007-2018. We calculated the frequency of occurrence, gender and age, annual changes and the overall trend of mortality from liver cirrhosis. we determined the liver cirrhosis form and liver failure stage.We determined the liver cirrhosis form and liver failure stage by the results of the section and histologic morphological signs.

Results. We found that forensic examination of corpses diagnosed a significant number of liver cirrhosis. Their annual number averaged 1.15% of total non-violent deaths. During the studied period, the annual incidence of liver cirrhosis changed significantly: it increased in 2009, 2015, 2017, 2018 and decreased in 2013 and 2016. Change difference reached 20.5%. We determined that the highest number of liver cirrhosis were diagnosed between 2009 and 2012, the lowest in 2016. In the last 2 years, the number of liver cirrhosis cases tends to increase. Over a 12-year liver cirrhosis study period we were a steady trend in the decline established. We found that liver cirrhosis during forensic examination of corpses in Moscow were more likely in young and middle-aged men detected. The morphological structure was dominated by small and mixed morphological forms. We found that in histological forensic examination the terminal (48.9%) and decompensated (43.4%) stages of hepatic failure was most often diagnosed.

Conclusion: According to traditional perceptions liver cirrhosis can rarely be the cause of sudden death and is therefore more likely to be the subject of an autopsy by anatomists rather than forensic experts. On the one hand we established that high (1/100) incidence of liver cirrhosis correlates with the prevalence of this disease among the population of the city of Moscow and on the other indicates a significant number of cases of non-violent death in the total volume of forensic autopsies. We have calculated that the number of annually diagnosed deaths from liver cirrhosis were proportional to the total number of non-violent deaths. During the period 2007-2018 a marked dynamics of decline in the frequency of forensic detection of liver cirrhosis, which is consistent with the general trend of reduction of cirrhosis incidence in Moscow. However, in the last 2 years there was some increase in the number of the liver cirrhosis. The young and middle-aged men in mixed and small-node morphological form at the terminal and decompensated stage of the disease were diagnosed.

Background: Deaths from injuries from motorcycle accidents have over the years remained a significant public health concern in India. Aims: Our aim is to determine the distribution of the victims' age and gender and to classify the cause of death and the anatomical pattern of injuries observed. Materials and methods: It is a 2-year autopsy based analysis of all fatalities from motorcycle accidents seen from our Teaching Hospital experience. The data were extracted from autopsy records, from police journal excerpts from hospital case notes and analyzed using SPSS version 20. Results: For Male there were 30 (85.7 percent) males and 5 (14.3 percent) females: 6:1 female ratio. The highest age group was 31-40 years . Majority of the victims 18 (51%) were Motorcycle riders, followed by passengers on back seat who accounted for 10 (29%), while the remaining 7 (20%) of the victims were pedestrians. Commonest injury in the cases are head injuries constituting 77% followed by thorax 57% and abdominal injuries 42.8%.Causes of death in study are mostly due to crainiocerebralinjuires 51.4% followed by multiple injuires in 40% and sever hemmorage 5.7% and septicaemia 2.8%.Conclusion: This study found that males are the main victims of death from motorcycle accidents during the fourth decade of life. Most of the victims were a motorcycle driver. Many died from craniocerebral damage.

Background: Homicide-suicides are a distinct group of violent deaths that separate them from murders and suicides. Although such incidents are uncommon, they have devastating effects on families and societies, and typically attract a lot of mainstream media coverage. Aims: present study aims to incidents of homicide followed by suicides that occurred within our experience. Materials and methods: The observational data obtained from records of post mortem from the department of Forensic from 2017 to 2019. Results: Out of the total 82 cases of homicides there were 11 cases murder–suicides involving 11 victims and 5 assailants. It is about 13.4% of all homicides and 3.4% of 2384 medico legal autopsies conducted during the period. female victims were distributed in a wide range of age . Most commonly involved age group ranges between 0-14 years and 15-24 years with4 cases (36.4%), married subjects 6 cases (54%) of rural areas with five cases (63.7%). Drowning or burns was the method of choice in murder–suicide deaths. Most of the cases have a relationship to perpetrator is spouse , boyfriend or girlfriend 5 cases(45.5%) and most of the patients have mental illness in study of 6 cases 54.5%. Conclusions: A risk assessment should include determining the chance of involvement not only in suicide and homicide, but also in murder-suicide as a perpetrator or a victim.

Gas Chromatography (GC or GLC) is a commonly used analytic technique in any analytical laboratory for quality control as well as identification and quantitation of compounds in a mixture. High sensitivity, selectivity, resolution, speed, good accuracy and precision, wide dynamic concentration range, simple, economic and robust instrument design, and its ability to be interfaced with many established and emerging sampling and detection systems have made GC the instrument of choice in Forensic Science. A broad variety of organic samples can be separated and analysed as long as the compounds are sufficiently thermally stable and reasonably volatile. Gas chromatography can be used for the separation of gases, liquids and solids. Materials such as biological materials (tissues, blood, urine, etc), alcohol, fire debris, car paints, drugs, pesticides, plant material and fibres are the most common evidential materials analysed by forensic chemists/scientists and are characterized by a high degree of complexity. One of the major challenges is to ensure that the sample injected is truly the representative sample of the extract. Therefore, improvement in injection and sampling handling techniques has always been necessity. Inclusion of Headspace (HS) as a sample injection technique has improved and reduced the sampling error and sample loss during preparation. Headspace analysis is based on the principle that volatile components in avial, maintained at equilibrium, diffuse into the gas phase above the sample which is then extracted and introduced into the GC system for analysis. This ensures that the sample is the true representation of the test sample. In HS, sample injection volume can range anywhere between few µl to 1000µl. Some recent applications of GC-HS in Forensic Chemistry, including those in Forensic Toxicology, are presented in the article, which include alcohol estimation in drunken driving cases, estimation of drugs seized in bulk form, illicit drugs, estimation of pesticides in biological matrix and post-mortem volatiles in stored samples.

Police officers help to maintain peace and security in any nation and checks whether people abide by law of the country and instrumental in bringing justice all over the world. But they go through thick and thin during their career. The aim of the present study is to find out the coping strategy, misconceptions of after-death and paranormal phenomena amongst police officers who handle dead bodies. Participants consisted of Police officers within the age group of 25–60 years. Total of 32 samples were collected from different police stations across Ernakulam District in state of Kerala. Method used was Interview and the data was qualitatively analyzed. The study explored that certain police officers had belief in paranormal phenomenon and misconceptions about after death, other reported that belief in rebirth was based on their religious background. Coping strategies varied in each police officer.