Forensic Medicine and Toxicology Lecture Notes

A collection of vocabulary flashcards covering forensics topics including age determination, wound classification, firearm injuries, asphyxia, postmortem changes, and clinical toxicology.

Age Determination

The process of determining the age of a subject through radiological examination according to gender, used to demonstrate ages of medico legal importance.

Defense Injuries

Types of injuries, such as contusions, abrasions, cut, or stab wounds, sustained by a victim attempting to protect themselves against an attack.

Medico-legal importance of defensive wounds

These wounds show evidence of resistance, provide information about the causative instrument, denote a likely homicidal manner of infliction, and indicate the victim was alive during the attack.

Knife defense wounds

Cut wounds that occur across the flexors of the fingers and in the palm when a victim attempts to grip the blade of a knife.

Firearm Injuries Inlet and Exit

The distinct characters of entry and exit wounds used to estimate firing distance and differentiate between suicidal, accidental, and homicidal manners of death.

Mechanisms of death in firearm injuries

The possible physiological reasons for mortality in cases involving firearms, which must be described in a primary medico legal report.

Degrees of burn

Classifications of thermal injury used to identify complications and correlate the physical damage to the manner of death.

Violent Asphyxia

Mechanical interference with respiration characterized by external general features and classified according to external signs to identify the cause and mechanism of death.

Postmortem changes

Physical or chemical alterations after death used to estimate the time passed since death, the cause of death, and the position of the victim.

Anion gap

A calculation used in Arterial Blood Gases (ABG) analysis to determine causes of high anion gap metabolic acidosis, often caused by toxic agents.

ECG (Electrocardiography)

A diagnostic tool used to define normal or abnormal heart rate and rhythm via waves, segments, and intervals, specifically to diagnose toxicological exposure.

Ricin

A toxic active principle found in plants that causes hemolysis leading to Renal Faiture.

Medical Documentary Evidence (ML report)

Documentation written in paragraphs rather than separate statements, including general examination findings like temperature, pulse, and blood pressure.

Scalp contused wound

A specific type of injury to the SCALP that may superficially appear as a cut wound, requiring a description of whether the wound edges are apparently regular.