Forensic Medicine: The Dignified Management of The Dead

                                                                                                 

The Dignified Management of The Dead

A)The different socio-cultural and religious methods of the final rites related to natural death.

B)Mass Disasters and its Management

C)How Disaster Victim Identification is done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A) The different socio-cultural and religious methods of the final rites related to natural death

How and when rituals are practiced vary depending upon country of origin and society. There are many rituals in the world  practiced after death.

Endocannibalism:For some cultures the best way to honor the dead is by eating them. Though no longer practiced, cultures who engaged in endocannibalism included Melanesians of Papua New Guinea and the Wari people of Brazil.

Tibetian Buddhist celestial Burials: Tibetian Buddhists practice ritual dissection – the tradition of cutting the dead bodies into pieces and feeding them to the animals and the birds mainly. They have no desires to preserve a dead body, something that is seen as empty vessel.This ritual had been practiced for a thousands of years.

Sati system: The funeral practice in which a recently widowed woman burned themselves on their husband’s funeral fire. Though this custom was a voluntary act but they were a lot of incidence in which women were forced to commit Sati against their will. They were dragged to death against their will. This system was practiced by the Hindus (Nepal, India) and other ancient societies such as the Egyptians, Greeks, Goths and the Scythians.

B)Mass Disasters and its Management

The WHO had defined disasters as an occurrence that causes damage , ecological disruption, loss of human life and deterioration of health and health services on a scale sufficient to warrant an extra-ordinary response from outside the affected community. Disasters may be natural (earthquakes, flood, cyclones,  drought, pandemics).

Management:  Mass disaster management is a team work which consists police, army, medical experts, civil authorities. They are responsible for the management (recognition of the dead bodies and many other works).

Immediate emergency provision:

·         First Aid on site and vehicles and personnel to remove victims to hospitals for treatment

·         Fire suppression equipment and personnel if needed

·         Forensic pathologist(s), other specialists for purposes of identification of bodies, and investigators

·         Emergency lighting, tents. electric generators with supplies of fuel for their operation

·         Pens, pencils, paper for charts and writing, clipboards

·         Temporary morgue facilities with all necessary dissection and examination equipment, including but not limited to x-ray machines, running water, electricity with generator availability, drinking water, and toilet facilities

·         Assurance of availability of computers and printers, telephones. fax machines, digital cameras, appropriate identification software, and other office supplies necessary

C)How Disaster Victim Identification is done

Presumptive Identification:  Firstly a person is identified as a member of a sub-group of a population based upon visual recognition, personal data (age , race, gender, anthropometric data, blood type, parity, hair color and style, eye color, skin blemishes, tattoos, and medical and surgical history), and personal belongings (wallets, purses, clothing, and jewelry).

Visual Recognition: Recognition of the intact or  dead body by relatives is one way to identification.. It should be noted that  visual identification can difficult for the relatives who are in extreme emotional distress, as the dead body may have been distorted due to pallor, edema, bruises, etc.

Data for Presumptive Identification:

Age: Age estimation can be done through various analysis of body parts such as  height, weight  ,denition ,ossification centre, epiphyseal union ,hair color, eye changes, etc.

Gender: Nowadays hair length and style, clothing, hair color, earrings, and other items of jewelry have assumed a more unisexual nature and thus not anymore useful for gender identification. Gender identification is easy as one gets hints from external genitalia, pubic hair patterns, breast, etc. Cytological examination, may be quite useful. Barr's bodies (sex chromatin ) in the buccal mucosa cells and the polymorphonuclear leukocytes indicate female gender.

Anthropometric data: The anthropometric data useful in identification are stature and weight. One might find weight useful to separate morbidly obese individual from one that is anorexic.

Skin findings: Areas of hyperpigmentation  or depigmentation, birth marks-such as a port wine stain distinctive skin lesions - such as hairy nevus, keloid formations, scars from accidental trauma. Photographs of the individual maybe useful. Other skin findings include tattoos, piercings, and body modifications.

Medical and surgical history. The role of medical records and medical and surgical history should be obvious in most cases.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We do not own any of the contents in this blog. We are not hosting any copyrighted content, all the links provided in this blog are just randoms links already available somewhere in the internet. All the contents in this blog are only for educational purposes. If you think your right is infringed in any way, please let us know at js2269335@gmail.com. We will remove the link as soon as possible.