Murder Call

It is absolutely necessary for a medicolegal system to have access to a well-equipped, adequately staffed toxicology laboratory. Without this, rulings as to cause and manner of death may be erroneous. All physicians and toxicologists have had cases where an individual was found to have a fatal level of drug in the blood but was functioning with this level; the drug had nothing to do with the death. This is seen typically in drug abusers who acquire a tolerance to drug levels that would kill an ordinary person, but are normal functioning levels to them. This same situation is seen by clinical physicians — the patient admitted to the emergency room conscious and coherent, with drug levels that would be associated with unconsciousness or death in most individuals.   In all autopsy cases, at a minimum, blood, urine, bile, and vitreous should be collected if available. All specimens should be collected with a clean needle and a new syringe.  The specimens of blood,...

Deaths caused by electrocution are infrequent and these are accidents, with suicides rare and homicides even rarer. These deaths involve both low voltage (<600 V) and high-voltage (>600–750 V) currents. They virtually always involve alternating currents. Humans are four to six times as sensitive to alternating currents as to direct. Alternating currents between 39 and 150 cycles per s have the greatest lethality. Amperage, or the amount of current flow, is the most important factor in electrocution. It is directly related to the voltage and inversely related to the resistance. Voltage is a measure of the electromotive force and ohms are the resistance to the conduction of electricity. This is expressed in the formula: A = V/R For electrocution from low-voltage (110–120 V) household current, there must be direct contact with the electrical circuit, with death primarily caused by ventricular fibrillation. In high-voltage accidents, direct contact with the wire ...