Hand-held cow horn: resurgence of an old arm or a potential terrorist weapon

A 23 year old man presented with intestinal evisceration from stab injury to the left side of the abdomen with a hand-held cow horn at a local night party. He complained of severe abdominal pain and bleeding at the site of injury. He was hemodynamically stable. At emergency exploration, the eviscerated bowel was viable with no adjacent mesenteric tear. Other intra abdominal organs were normal. The eviscerated bowel was lavaged and reduced into the abdomen through the 7 cm anterior abdominal wall laceration. The laceration was repaired and abdomen closed in layers. Post operative recovery was uneventful. The hand-held cow horn can easily be concealed and may pass through security checks undetected. It should be added to the ever increasing list of weapons of small scale terror.     

Ventricular septal necrosis after blunt chest trauma

Ventricular Septal Defect (VSD) after blunt chest trauma is a very rare traumatic affection. We report here a case of blunt chest injury-related VSD and pseudoaneurysm. A 30-year old male truck driver was referred from a trauma center to our hospital seven days after a blunt chest trauma and rib fracture. The patient had severe pulmonary edema and echocardiography showed large VSD. Several mechanisms are involved in the pathogenesis of this affection including an acute compression of the heart muscle between the sternum and the spine, leading to excessive changes in the intrathoracic and most likely the intracardiac pressure after blunt chest injury. Traumatical patients with the same symptoms may be at risk of sudden death. Therefore, a high grade of suspicion is mandatory even without solid evidence of myocardial damage on the initial evaluation. In continue some hidden angles of this case was discussed. Given the prognostic implications of traumatic VSD with associated pseudoaneurysm, its detection has critical value for preventing its clinical sequelae.     

《法拉奇传》

正她是"二十世纪采访女王""世界第一女记者",因1980年采访邓小平在中国声名鹊起;她强硬地与世界对话,敢爱敢恨,永远无所畏惧,即使面对上帝,也从不妥协;她曾两次获得圣·文森特新闻奖,1次获得班卡瑞拉畅销书作者奖,其作品《风云人物采访录》已成为美国大学新闻专业学习的重要读物。法拉奇说,"做一名记者,对我来说,意味着做一个不听话的人;     

Deaths among homeless people in Istanbul

The number of the homeless people in Istanbul, one of the largest cities in the world, is at present unknown. There has been no previous study in Turkey on cases and causes of death occurring among these individuals. In this paper, documents and autopsy reports of the Mortuary Section of the Council of Forensic Medicine, Istanbul, covering the period January 1st, 1991-December 31st, 1995, were reviewed. We established that there were 126 cases of death among homeless individuals in Istanbul during this period, 120 of them being males (95%), four (3%) females, and two (2%) transsexuals. Ninety-four corpses were found outdoors, 32 indoors. No personal documents, such as identity cards, were found in 110 individuals (87%), whereas only 16 individuals could be identified. Most deaths occurred in the age group of 41-50 years. One hundred and three of the cases (82%) died in the cold season between October and April. The deaths of 98 cases were attributable to natural causes, whereas the remaining 28 cases died from unnatural causes. Respiratory tract diseases occupied the first rank among cases of death from natural causes (44%). Alcohol abuse and other infections were further striking factors contributing to the fatal outcome. This is the first retrospective study on this topic in Turkey. However, more detailed and anterospectively programmed studies on this subject, a growing social problem, should be carried out.     

GC/MS determination of zolpidem in postmortem specimens in a voluntary intoxication

An ingestion of an unknown quantity of Ivadal (zolpidem) tablets in a case of drug abuse is described. The authors report a new and fast method of analysing and determining the zolpidem concentration in postmortem specimens. Quantitation of zolpidem was performed by ethyl acetate extraction from alkalinized body fluids before GC/MS analysis. The analyses were performed without any complex sample clean-up steps and with little sample material. Postmortem concentrations of zolpidem in body fluids are given. The proposed method is a rapid procedure of analysis in cases of deliberate poisoning with the sedative-hypnotic drug, zolpidem.     

Review of factors susceptible of influencing post-mortem carbohydrate-deficient transferrin

Seric carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) is a biochemical marker of chronic alcohol abuse. Assessment of the influence of factors likely to modify CDT concentration is necessary to justify its use in the analysis of post-mortem blood samples. Hemolysis, site of collection and storage were tested. Hemolysed samples showed decreased CDT concentration. Statistical analysis of CDT concentration in cardiac blood versus femoral blood revealed no significant differences. Storage for fifteen days at +4 degrees C or +20 degrees C did not affect CDT concentration but repeated freezing and thawing resulted in decreased levels of CDT.