LERNING OBJECTIVES

After attending this session the participants will understand the following

n Definition of death

n Presumption of death and survivorship

n Somatic and molecular death

n Brain death with its medicolegal aspects

n Suspended animation

n Mode, manner, mechanism and cause of death

n Estimation of ‘Time Since Death’ from the immediate, early and late changes after death and factors influencing such changes.

n Medicolegal aspects of immediate, early and late changes after death

n Differentiation between postmortem staining and bruising, hypostasis and congestion, rigor mortis and cadaveric spasm, rigor mortis and conditions simulating rigor mortis, etc.

n Postmortem damage by predators

n Entomology of the cadaver and postmortem interval

Definition of death

• In most of the countries of the world including Bangladesh, there is no clear-cut definition about death in law

• Black’s Law Dictionary defines death as,

‘The cessation of life; the ceasing to exist;

• Chamber’s twentieth century dictionary defines it as

‘Extinction of life’

• Oxford dictionary gives the meaning as

‘The end of life’

Almost all doctors, come across death at sometime or other in their profession. The legal and ethical aspects of this inevitable process form an important part of forensic medicine.

• Clinically death is defined as the irreversible cessation of life. Thus physicians declare death with cessation of all vital functions, viz, nervous system, circulatory system and the respiratory system.

That is why these are known as atria mortis, death’s portals of entry.