Initials: A question of identity

It has been a generally accepted practice among document examiners to request known handwriting standards which duplicate the questioned material under examination.When initials are questioned it is not always possible to have initials duplicated and known signatures are sometimes substituted.A research study was conducted using a sample of 65 writers to determine if the letters in a group of initials were written in the same manner as the capital letters in a signature. The study showed that 69% of the writers in the sample made one or more changes or additions to their initials which were not present when they wrote their signatures.     

Sudden death by inhalation of cyclopropane

This paper reports the case of a 22-year-old white male who was found dead in a storage room as a result of a fatal ingestion of cyclopropane. Cyclopropane is a sweet-smelling, irritating gas. Autopsy findings revealed congestion and hemorrhagic edema of the lungs, congestion of the trachea, and early autolysis. Cyclopropane was determined by headspace gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. To our knowledge, this is the first reported fatality involving cyclopropane.     

The impact of the right to refuse treatment in a forensic patient population: six-month review

In December of 1987, the Wisconsin supreme court held that all involuntarily committed mental patients in the state had the right to refuse psychotropic medication unless a court held that they were incompetent to make treatment decisions. The authors studied the effects of this decision in a 165-bed forensic hospital over the first six months after implementation of the decision. They found that 29 percent of patients already on psychotropic medication initially refused further treatment as opposed to 75 percent of newly admitted patients. Of refusers, 32 percent eventually resumed taking medication voluntarily; courts overturned the refusals of all the 51 percent who maintained their refusals, after an average delay of over a month. The length of procedural delays actually increased over the six months of the study as the courts learned of the decision. The authors compare their findings with other reported studies of implementation of right to refuse treatment decisions and discuss differences between the right to refuse treatment for civilly and criminally committed patients.     

The mechanism of fatal cardiopulmonary injury caused by a blow from a golf club

In the course of a scuffle, a youth of 18 years was struck a single blow across the chest with a golf club. He collapsed dead on the spot. At autopsy, a precisely located and highly distinctive patterned imprint abrasion of the precordial region was revealed providing an excellent match with the weapon. The heart showed multiple internal ruptures and there was a laceration of the lingula of the left lung. Injury to the chest wall was confined to the soft tissues, the rib cage and sternum being intact. We postulate a novel mechanism to explain the cardiac rupture.     

Changes in the hemoglobin absorption spectra of blood stains preserved under combined environmental exposure conditions

Kinetics of changes in absorption spectra (240-650 nm) of aqueous extracts from bloodstains of considerable age (11 years) was studied. It was stated that at early storage time modification of globin residue goes parallel to oxidation of haem residue and at continuous time (more than 1 year) of solid phase storage of blood films considerable damage of protein and haem with their subsequent destruction occurs. But intensity of these processes is likely to depend on factors of initial environmental exposure of fresh bloodstains.