Emedinews:Insights on Medicolegal issues: Shotgun Wounds

When a shotgun cartridge is fired the pellets begin to disperse soon after the cartridge has left the weapon. This dispersion increases with the range of fire but it also depends upon the degree of ‘choking’ of the barrel of the weapon. ‘Choking’ refers to the restriction of the bores of certain shotguns at their muzzle ends. The degree of constriction is maximal in the ‘full choke’ weapon and is of lesser extent in the ‘half choke’ weapon. The purpose of the ‘choking’ device is to keep the charge of shot in a single mass for some distance before dispersion commences. In these circumstances, a single large irregular lacerated wound is produced. Burning, blackening, and tattooing are seen around and in the depth of the wound. The wad is often found in the wound. As the range of fire increases to a few yards, the burning, blackening and tattooing disappear, while the charge of shot begins to spread.

• Separate pellets entering the skin: appear around the central opening caused by the main mass of shot. In addition, an independent injury may be caused by the wad.
• Dispersion of shot increases at greater ranges: the greater the dispersion the greater the range.
• Actual spread depends upon the type of boring of the weapon.
• Direction of fire of a shotgun can only be determined from the entrance wound in close range injuries.

Emedinews:Insights on Medicolegal issues: Summons from court of law

The word ‘Summon’ is derived from ‘subpoena’ which means under penalty.

Summon is a court document/order compelling the attendance of any witness including doctor as medical witness, in a Court of law on a particular day, time and place, for the purpose of giving evidence. It may also require him to bring with him the medicolegal report/clinical sheets/register, any medical books, medical documents etc, that he is bound by law to produce in evidence. The summon is issued under Section 61 of Criminal Procedure Code by the Court in writing, in duplicate, signed by the presiding officer of the Court and bears the seal of the Court. It is served on the witness by a police officer, by an officer of the Court or other public servant. The person should sign a receipt on the back of the other copy. It can also be served by registered post, or fixed on some conspicuous part of his residence.

Emedinews: Insights on Medicolegal Issues:How do drugs influence driving?

How do drugs influence driving?

If you think drug–taking has little, or even a positive impact on your driving, you are sadly mistaken. It’s also important to bear in mind that it can be hard to determine exactly how a drug will affect your driving ability. Impairment caused by drugs can vary according to the individual, drug type, dosage, the length of time the drug stays in the body, or if the drug has been taken with other drugs or alcohol.

According to road traffic rules in Delhi, driving with blood alcohol levels more than 30 mg is an offence.

But, blood alcohol level is not the only thing that can determine a person’s sobriety.
A driver whose blood alcohol content reading is somewhat less than 0.03%, but shows signs of impairment can be charged with an intoxicated driving. The "legal limit" is simply the number above which a driver is automatically guilty of driving under the influence without any other evidence.

On merely a suspicion of alcohol in the individual’s body, the police may demand the driver to give a sample of his or her breath into an approved screening device, which will determine the driver’s blood–alcohol concentration on a preliminary basis. In many countries there are provisions of penalty for refusing to provide a specimen of breath, blood or urine for analysis is a up to six months’ imprisonment, and a driving ban of at least 12 months.

Causing death by careless driving when under the influence of drink or drugs carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison, a minimum two–year driving ban and a requirement to pass an extended driving test before the offender is able to drive legally again.

Emedinews:Insights on Medicolegal issues: Preparation of MLC in injury cases by the attending doctor

• Injuries produced by a blunt weapon on tense skin covering the bones, as on scalp, eyebrow, iliac crest, shin, perineum, knee or elbow look like incised wounds. During the preparation of MLC report the doctors should keep in mind that he has to provide a clue about the weapon used, whether sharp-edged one or otherwise, the direction of the force, the duration of injury and the location of the wound, which may suggest mode of production i.e. suicide, accident, homicides along with whether the injury is fabricated or otherwise.

• Wounds produced by a blunt weapon or by a fall on the hard surface, object, on tense structures/skin covering the bones, such as the scalp, eyebrow, iliac crest, shin, perineum, knee or elbow when the limb is flexed look like incised wounds; but, they are lacerated wound, also called split laceration. These wounds may mislead the doctor and the investigating authorities about a sharp weapon.

• When incised-looking wounds are examined by doctor under magnifying lens, the edges of such wounds are found to be irregular with bruising and wounds are produced by blunt weapon.

• An incised wound, cut, slash, and slice is a clean cut through the skin, it may or may not involve underlying tissues and structures. It is caused by a sharp-edged instrument, which is longer than the depth of wound. It is produced by infliction of an object having a sharp-cutting edge such as knife, razor, blade, scalpel, sword over the body.

Emedinews:Insights on Medicolegal issues: A medicolegal autopsy

• A medicolegal autopsy means an examination of the body after death, which is conducted in cases where the circumstances of the death suggest that the death was caused by homicide, suicide or accident or is suspicious in nature where criminal investigation is instituted. 
• The Police/magistrate are empowered by the law in India to order a designated doctor to perform a forensic autopsy; hence no consent from the family/legal heir is required for forensic autopsy.
• Autopsia cadaverum or an autopsy is the post-mortem examination of corpse by a registered doctor. It is a specialized surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse to determine the identity of corpse, the cause and manner of death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present. The autopsy must be performed by a specialized experienced medical doctor; however if possible, it should preferably be done only by a doctor qualified/experienced in forensic medicine.
• The autopsy ideally includes both a thorough external examination of the body and a probing examination of the internal organs of the body. During the external examination, the doctor examines the body searching for wounds and injuries, noting deformities, absence of limbs, state of nutrition, and unusual features.
• The doctor should examine the hands, fingers, fingernails, feet, teeth, scalp, tattoos, scars, hair, skeleton remains, hair fibers, jewelry, and clothing.
• While conducting the internal examination, the autopsy surgeon should remove the deceased’s chest plate, lungs, heart, liver, intestines, etc. and, with the use of a scalpel, examine these organs for wounds, disease, and deformities.
• There should be an arrangement to videotape the autopsy and must release a detailed report, including the cause of death to the police as early as possible. It is best and most transparent if the postmortem report is handed over along with dead body.
• Autopsies, as well as the reports released by the medical examiner, vary in quality. Some medical examiners take little care in their work. A small percentage is outright incompetent.
• Once an autopsy is complete the body must be well reconstituted by sewing or suturing it back together with cosmetic care of deceased body. Suturing from chin to pubic prominence should be masked by resembling skin color paste. 

Emedinews:Insights on Medicolegal issues: Doctor in the Court room

Physician in the courtroom is the traditional contribution of medicine to justice Truth is perused by law and medicine and it is not captured in the court of law. Medical literature/books/journal/case law in the form of medical evidence if produced by medical practioner must be available for visual inspection in the court of law. Even though you have ready evidence into the record of the trial/debate, your opponents and the critic have a right to examine the evidence more closely.  An opponent may ask to inspect your evidence at the conclusion of your argument/speech, and your critic may ask to inspect select pieces of evidence at the conclusion of the argument/debate. Both requests are quite common.  You should give them the evidence they request, and be able to tell them exactly what you read from the document. Although quoted evidence is vital to cross-examination trial/debate, it is not difficult to grasp the basic principles of collecting and using evidence. What medical evidence is, and how it is used, will quickly become evident as you listen to a few cross-examination trial and its legal debates in the court of law. 

Emedinews:Insights on Medicolegal issues:Narco-analysis

·         The human being is capable to lie by using his power of fantasy and imagination in brain; however, in practice of medical science there is no way of distinguishing reality from imagination and fantasy. Only mere speculation or leads of facts is possible.

 

·         Narcoanalysis is based on the principle that a person is able to lie using his power of conscious brain imagination and, therefore, under the influence of the sedative and hypnotic drug the capacity of his imagination, fantasy to create a lie is blocked or diminished, by leading the person into an altered conscious state of mind.

 

·         The use of narcotic and psychotropic drugs in narcoanalysis tests on healthy human being may have side effects and health hazards to the person.

 

·         The term narcoanalysis is derived from the Greek word narke which means anesthesia.

 

·         It is used to describe a diagnostic and psychotherapeutic technique that uses psychotropic drugs, particularly barbiturate induce a spoor/sleep in which mental elements with strong associated affects come to the surface, where they can be used by the treating physician/doctor.

 

·         The procedure was mainly intended for neurotic and psychosomatic patients, and it met with a certain success by psychiatrists in treating traumatic pathologies, mental deviation and conditions charged with strong human emotions. It is presumed that in the Narco Analysis Test, the subject's power of fantasy and imagination is neutralized and it becomes difficult for human being to create a lie in brain and his answers would be restricted to facts he is already aware based on truth.

 

·         Narco-analysis has been used in Anglo-Saxon countries from last more than hundreds year.

 

·         In India the application of the technique in forensic began since a decade back. Recently the honorable supreme court of India said that the test without consent is violative of the fundamental right of a citizen not to incriminate himself and his right to privacy under Articles 20(3) and 21 of the Constitution hence “No individual should be forcibly subjected to any of these techniques in question, whether in the context of investigation in any criminal cases or otherwise." 

Emedinews:Insights on Medicolegal issues:Taking someone else’s medicine is also a kind of misuse

• Women who take medicine to try to end a pregnancy are misusing the medicine, and may poison themselves
• Poisoning accidents can occur when safety warnings are ignored and chemicals are used in the wrong way. For example, there is usually a warning on a bleach container that bleach should not be mixed with any other cleaner. If people ignore the warning and use bleach with another household cleaner, they may be poisoned by the gases emitted.
• Another example of misuse of a product is when insecticides that are meant to be used on plants or buildings are used to kill insects living on people, in their hair or on their bodies.
• Sometimes people poison themselves by misusing medicines. They may take more than the doctor prescribed because they think, wrongly, that a larger dose will make them better more quickly.
• Taking someone else’s medicine is also a kind of misuse. People who take someone else’s medicine may be harmed if they take the wrong dose or take a medicine that is not meant for treating their condition.

Emedinews:Insights on Medicolegal issues: Estimation of blood alcohol

• About 3-4 ml of blood is drawn as sample.
• Chemically clean evacuated tubes of 5ml should be used to collect samples.
• Tubes should be water proof /not be vulnerable to freezing; they should have labels with identification codes.
• EDTA should be used as anticoagulant. Tubes with liquid EDTA /fluoride reduce the risk of hemolysis leads to altered results
• 2ml of 5% aqueous solution of sodium citrate containing 0.2% w/v of formaldehyde or 0.5% w/v of formalin solution must be added to prevent decomposition which leads to altered results
• Plastic vacuum tubes/ Plastic vacuum gel tubes are preferred to glass tubes. If vacuum tubes are not available or tubes are opened for freely flowing samples, stoppers which do not react with blood constituents should be available.
• Special boxes for tube transfer and storage, earmarked refrigerator/ freezer must be available in hospital conducting medicolegal cases.
• About 3-4 ml of blood is taken in a sterile 5ml injection vial (properly sealed and labeled) containing about 2ml of 5% aqueous solution of sodium citrate containing 0.2% w/v of formaldehyde (or 0.5% w/v of formalin solution).
• Two approximately 1cm x 1cm size blood stains are formed on clean cotton cloth/gauze pieces and, after they are dry, they are transferred to a sterile 10ml injection vial it should be properly dried, before packing to avoid decomposition and then sealed and labeled.
• Blood stains located on the body of an uninjured person are taken by rubbing with moistened clean cotton cloth pieces, it should be properly dried, before packing to avoid decomposition and then sealed and labeled.

Emedinews:Insights on Medicolegal issues:What is an autopsy?

An autopsy, which is also known as a post-mortem examination, means the examination of the body of a dead person and is performed primarily to determine the cause of death, to identify or characterize the extent of disease states that the person may have had, or to determine whether a particular medical or surgical treatment had been effective. The postmortem examination includes external and internal cavity and viscus organ examination.

• The word autopsy is derived from the Greek word autopsia: "to see with one's own eyes."
• The doctor who conducts autopsy is an eye witness as well as an expert medical witness.
• Forensic autopsies are autopsies with legal implications and are performed to determine if death was an accident, homicide, suicide, or a natural event on inquest and request of law enforcement agency by a designated center and notified doctor.
• The Police and magistrate are empowered to order an autopsy under section 174 CrPc and 176 CrPc respectively.
• As per law, the forensic/legal autopsies are performed in India by medical doctors (minimum an MBBS); however, legal autopsy should only be conducted by a pathologist/forensic medicine expert, who has received specialty training in the diagnosis of diseases by the examination of body fluids and tissues.
• The doctor conducting autopsy in any dilemma must consult a doctor who has specialized in forensic medicine or an experienced doctor before finalizing medicolegal opinion.
• In academic institutions/hospitals, sometimes autopsies are also requested for teaching and research purposes, which is called pathological autopsy.
• Pathological autopsy is only conducted after obtaining valid informed consent of the legal heirs of deceased
• Doctor-patient confidentiality applies to autopsy examinations as to medical records of living patients. This means that doctors are not allowed to reveal the results of an autopsy examination to third parties without the permission of the legal heirs of the deceased.
• In many medical centers, the autopsy report is first submitted to the physician who treated the patient; the treating physician then shares the findings with the family.
• The legal heirs are always entitled to receive a copy of the autopsy report.
• The hospital is not allowed to give out any information about an autopsy or to respond to inquiries about an autopsy from any third parties.
• The family may choose to share the information with anyone they wish, but they must give written permission for the hospital to release autopsy records, just as with any medical records

Emedinews:Insights on Medicolegal issues:The doctor is not required to make speculation about weapon of offence in a MLC Case the weapon are simple other than defined weapon as dangerous in Indian law.

·    The Section 324 of IPC states that any instruments for shooting, stabbing, cutting or any instruments used as weapons of offence is likely to cause death or by means of fire or any heated substance or by means of poison or any corrosive substance or by means of any explosive or by means of any substance which is deleterious to the human body to inhale, to swallow, or to receive into the blood or by means of any animal. These all will be taken as dangerous weapons.

·         The duty of the attending doctor is to record all the injuries, its dimension as far as possible, and the body parts where the injuries are located the nature of injury whether simple or grievous, caused by sharp/blunt object, age or duration of injury and with the vital parameters like blood pressure, pulse respiration with the mental status

·         When an investing officer came in hospital he needs some specific answer for his legal investigation and to book a case under law of land

·         The injuries present could be a self-inflicted or fabricated one? if yes please mention the forensic justification

• Is there any signs, symptoms or smell of alcohol or any drug intoxication? If yes please opine about his mental status due the influence of intoxication, please also preserve the sample of blood.
• Please opine the injured or intoxicated patient is fit for obtaining his statement? If no please give duly reasons and an approximate time interval for medical revaluation for his/her fitness for statement.
• Is the condition of patient is critical, severe or serious? If so the dying declaration must be recorded by attending doctor before one or two witness. 

Emedinews:Insights on Medicolegal issues: Fracture of bone–Grievous injury

The certification of grievous injury on the basis of fracture of bone is done by doctors in accordance with Section 320 IPC, which lists the injuries that are called grievous injury.
• The medical dictionary meaning of the word ‘fracture’ is breaking of a part, especially the bone or break or rupture in the bone or in continuity of a bone This definition is appropriate for the radiologist or orthopedician, but not for the purpose of certifying an injury as grievous since in many cases in legal scrutiny it has been found that the fracture reported by radiologists were tentative, superficial, fabricated or self-inflicted, hardly 1 mm deep cut in the bone or mere a ponding effect on bone with no medical or surgical complication.
• It is important for the doctor to understand that a tentative fracture medically/clinically non-significant/uncomplicated/invented by modern scan methods cannot be certified as grievous injury.
• A mere superficial cut and scratch on bone may not be grievous because the meaning of grievous is.. threatening great harm; "a dangerous operation"; "a grave situation"; "a grave illness"; "grievous bodily harm"; "a serious wound"; "a serious turn of events"; "a severe case of wound or a life–threatening disease
• It must be remembered that the cutting of a bone does not necessarily involve a fracture of that bone. In a criminal revision at the Patna High Court, in which one individual received an incised wound, 3" × 3 ¼" × 1", on the lower part of the left leg cutting the bone underneath, it was held that where the evidence was merely that the bone had been cut and there was nothing whatever to indicate the extent of the cut, whether deep or a mere scratch upon the surface, it was impossible to infer from that evidence alone that grievous hurt had been caused within the meaning of the definition of section 320, IPC.
• The supreme court in its judgment, in one case, had clarified that until and unless such a cut on bone does not extend deep up to the medullary cavity it will not constitute a grievous hurt within the definition of fracture under section 320(7) of Indian Penal Code.
• In case of hurt it is the Court that judges finally whether the injury is simple or grievous. The duty of the medical witness is only to describe the facts and not classify a hurt. The entry made in the wound certificate as simple or grievous is only meant to guide the investigating officer

Emedinews:Insights on Medicolegal issues:Law and Injury in medico legal cases

Injury, assault and hurt are terms invariable used by doctors in hospital practice, often as synonyms. But all these three words have different meaning in law. They have been defined by the Indian Penal Code as below.

·         Injury Section, 44 IPC defines injury- Any harm whatever illegally caused to any person in body, mind, reputation or property

·         Assault Section 351 IPC defines assault as an offer or threat or attempt to apply force on body of another in a hostile manner. It may be a common/simple assault or an intention to murder.

·         Hurt: Section 319 IPC defines hurt as Whoever causes bodily pain, disease or infirmity to any person is said to cause hurt.

The cases of Hurt/body injury that we as doctors we deal with mean bodily pain, wound, disease or infirmity voluntarily caused to any person in medicolegal cases. This would include abrasions, contusions, lacerations, stab wounds, electric shock, fire arm or ligatures etc resulting in human body injury. The doctor who is certifying an injury report should keep in mind the Penal provision, which is required by police to book the case e.g. Simple Injury: Section 323 IPC, Simple injury caused by dangerous weapons: Section 324 IPC, Grievous Injury: Section 325 IPC, Grievous injury caused by dangerous weapons: Section 326 IPC, Dangerous Injury: Section 307 IPC, Injury likely to cause death: Section 304 IPC, Injury sufficient to cause death: Section 302 IPC and causing hurt by means of poison: Section 328 IPC

Emedinews:Insights on Medicolegal issues:Taking someone else's medicine is also a kind of misuse

• People who take someone else's medicine may be harmed if they take the wrong dose or take a medicine that is not meant for treating their condition.
• Women who take medicine to try to end a pregnancy are misusing the medicine, and may poison themselves.
• Poisoning accidents can occur when safety warnings are ignored and chemicals are used in the wrong way. For example, there is usually a warning on a bleach container that bleach should not be mixed with any other cleaner. If people ignore the warning and use bleach with another household cleaner, they may be poisoned by the gases emitted.
• Another example of misuse of a product is when insecticides that are meant to be used on plants or buildings are used to kill insects living on people, in their hair or on their bodies.
• Sometimes people poison themselves by misusing medicines. They may take more than the doctor prescribed because they think, wrongly, that a larger dose will make them better more quickly.
• Taking someone else's medicine is also a kind of misuse.

Emedinews:Insights on Medicolegal issues

• Plasma can be donated much more frequently than whole blood donation even up to twice a week. This is because the red blood cells, which take so much time to replace, are separated from the plasma and injected back into the plasma donor in saline solution.
• Whole blood refers to blood that contains all its components, including red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, and so on. "Plasma" can refer either to the yellowish fluid of blood in which the cells are suspended, or to the blood after RBCs have been removed.
• In cases of Donor and Recipient mismatch, the plasma can be given to a recipient with an incompatible group much more safely than RBCs, since the antibodies in the plasma are quickly diluted when transfused into circulatory system
• In case of trauma/serious injuries resulting in massive ongoing blood loss, the plasma can be transfused to restore the volume of the recipient's blood and to stop bleeding because of its high concentration of clotting factors. Hemophiliacs, who don't clot well, are frequent recipients of plasma.
• Whole blood is rarely used and medically required for transfusions. Rare exceptions are for sickle cell disease and heart surgery, in which the blood loss can be several units.
• RBCs have blood group antigens that cause illness and even death has been known to occur on several occasions when types are mismatched. Plasma contains antibodies for the antigens proteins in red blood cells that trigger an immune response.

(Dr Sudhir Gupta, Additional Prof, Forensic Medicine & Toxicology, AIIMS)

Emedinews:Insights on Medicolegal issues:What is Forensic Thanatology?

Thanatology is the branch of science that deals with death in all its aspects. Shapiro, a well-known thanatologist defined death as the irreversible loss of the properties of living matter. However, it is difficult to appreciate his claim that this definition satisfies the practical requirements for death certification.
• Black’s law dictionary (Black 1951) in United States defines death as “The Cessation of life, the ceasing to exit”, defined by physicians as total stoppage of circulation and cessation of vital functions, thereupon such as respiration and pulsation
•Section 46 IPC states that death denotes the death of a human being unless the contraryappears from the context.
•Section 2 (b) of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act defines death as Permanent disappearance of all evidence of life at any time after live birth gas taken place.
(Ref: Dr. PC Dikshit, Head (MAMC) MD LLB, Concise Textbook of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology, Peepee Publishers)

(Contributed by Dr Sudhir Gupta)

The investigating police officer and the private complaint cannot always be supposed to have knowledge of medical science so as to determine whether the act of the alleged medical professional/doctor or hospital amounts to rash or negligent act within the domain of criminal law under Section 304-A of IPC. said the Supreme Court of India.

• The Supreme Court says, as we have noticed hereinabove that the cases of doctors being subjected to criminal prosecution are on an increase. Sometimes such prosecutions are filed by private complainants and sometimes by the police based on an FIR being lodged and cognizance taken.
• The criminal process, once initiated, subjects the medical professional to serious embarrassment and sometimes harassment. He has to seek bail to escape arrest, which may or may not be granted to him.
• At the end he may be exonerated by acquittal or discharge but the loss which he has suffered in his reputation cannot be compensated by any standards.
• We may not be understood as holding that doctors can never be prosecuted for an offence of which rashness or negligence is an essential ingredient.
• All that we are doing is to emphasize the need for care and caution in the interest of society; for, the service which the medical profession renders to human beings is probably the noblest of all, and hence there is a need for protecting doctors from frivolous or unjust prosecutions.
• Many a complaint prefers recourse to criminal process as a tool for pressurizing the medical professional for extracting uncalled for or unjust compensation. Such malicious proceedings have to be guarded against.

Emedinews:Insights on Medicolegal issues:WMA non-therapeutic Biomedical Research guidelines Involving Human Subjects

The WMA standards have been drafted only as a guide to Doctors/physicians all over the world. Doctors are not relieved from criminal, civil and ethical responsibilities under the laws of land applicable to them.

• All precautions should be taken to respect the privacy of the subject and to minimize the impact of the study on the subject’s physical and mental integrity/health.
• In the purely scientific application of medical research carried out on a human being, it is the duty of the doctor to remain the protector of the life and health of that person on whom biomedical research is being carried out.
• The subjects should be volunteers, either healthy persons or patients for whom the experimental design is not related to the patient’s illness.
• The investigator or the investigating team should discontinue the research if in his/her or their judgment it may, if continued, be harmful to the individual.
• In research on man, the interest of science and society should never take precedence over considerations related to the wellbeing of the subject.

(Ref: 18th World Medical Assembly, Helsinki, Finland, 1964 and revised by the 29th World Medical Assembly, Tokyo, Japan, 1975)

Emedinews:Insights on Medicolegal issues:Human body dies in bits and pieces-The clinical death implies the failure of the body as an integrated system.

• After death the life continues in the separate tissues, which constitute the body. These only die after varying periods depending upon the ability of the tissue to function without blood supply.
• This is called molecular or cellular death. The nervous tissue dies rapidly and the vital centers die in about 5 minutes. The muscle live longer and they will constrict to direct electrical stimuli up to 3 hours. The corneal reflex and papillary reflex disappear at the time of death.
• The pupil reacts to the drugs like atropine that causes dilatation up to 1 hour. The cornea can be removed for transfused for up to 6 hours and blood can be transfused for up to 6 hours of death. Therefore, we die in bits and pieces.
• The legal definition of death depends upon the diagnosis of somatic death. The distinction between somatic and molecular death becomes important because in order to remove essential tissues and organs for transplantation there is a relatively short time for the biological properties of living matter to persist after somatic death. With somatic death, there is complete generalized anoxia of the tissue and consequently stoppage of metabolic process carried out by the tissue cells.
• The metabolic process of the ganglionic cells stops in minutes, which are most sensitive whereas that of connective tissue stops in hours, which are the least sensitive.
(Reference Dr. PC Dikshit Head (MAMC) MD LLB, Textbook of forensic medicine, Peepe Publisher)

(Contributed by Dr Sudhir Gupta)

Emedinews:Insights on Medicolegal issues:Embalming

• Embalming is the process of chemically treating a dead body, developed by the ancient Egyptians, to preserve a person's body after death.
• Embalming delays decomposition of the body, restores it to an acceptable physical appearance and reduces presence and growth of bacteria to prevent foul smell and adds fragrance to the corpse.
• Embalming is done by injecting chemicals directly into the bloodstream, chest cavity and abdominal cavity to preserve the corpse's appearance.
• The most commonly used chemicals for embalming are formaldehyde and ethanol. A combination of these two chemicals is sufficient to preserve the body for a short time i.e. up to a week.
• To keep the corpse in good condition for a longer period i.e. up to a month, a solution made up almost entirely of formaldehyde is used.
• There are several steps involved in modern embalming. First, the embalming fluid is injected directly into the deceased’s blood vessels, and pushed through the body with a mechanical pump. Next, the internal organs are hollowed of their contents and filled with embalming fluid. The chemicals are then injected beneath the skin wherever necessary, followed by a final surface embalming on injured areas of the body.
• Embalming certificate is required by law in certain circumstances like air/rail transportation.