Persecution of Jewish forensic pathologists

Not even forensic pathologists were spared by the anti-Jewish laws of the Third Reich. Fritz Strassmann and Paul Fraenckel were among more than 140 faculty of the Berlin Department of Medicine persecuted by the national socialist dictatorship. It was because of their Jewish background that Georg Strassmann was expelled from university in Breslau, and Leone Lattes was forced to leave in Pavia. Miklós Nyiszli was deported from Oradea to Auschwitz and forced to perform forensic autopsies. Stefan Jellinek in Vienna, Ludwik Hirszfeld in Warsaw and Friedrich Schiff in Berlin were other medical professionals whose achievements had enriched legal medicine before they became victims of anti-Jewish persecution.     

Discriminating deliberate self-harm (DSH) in young prison inmates through personality disorder

This study investigated deliberate self-harm (DSH) in young inmates. The objectives are twofold: first, to identify the social and clinical characteristics of inmates who commit DSH; and secondly, to ascertain the types of personality who are vulnerable in order to be able to predict future inmates who may harm themselves. A cross-sectional design was used to study psychosocial correctional personality characteristics and clinical pictures in inmates with DSH versus a control group without DSH. The measures used to evaluate different variables were a standard protocol and a self-report questionnaire (MCMI-II). Although the two groups compared are homogeneous and similar in terms of different psychosocial variables, inmates with DSH presented a significant background of maltreatment. Borderline, passive-aggressive, and antisocial personality disorders best discriminated both groups. The detection of borderline, negativistic, and antisocial disorders may help the medical services of penitentiary centers to predict youths with a possible risk of DSH. Despite the results obtained, longitudinal studies are needed to help clarify other risk factors, as well as other risk factors leading to self-harm behavior.     

Eight short tandem repeats (STR) frequencies for descendants from Terena indigenous Brazilian group

POPULATION: descendants from Terenas an indigenous group.     

Interpretation of postmortem change in cadavers in Spain

Estimating time since death is especially difficult in the examination of poorly preserved cadavers and depends on the experience of the examiner and comparison with previously documented cases showing similar characteristics. The present study reports on information obtained over the past ten years through the work of the Laboratorio de Antropología y Odontología Forense (LAF) of the Instituto Anatómico Forense de Madrid, Spain, in particular evaluating how the type of fracture influences postmortem change. From the original 225 forensic cases examined between 1992 and 2002 in the LAF, a sample of 29 cases were selected from various regions of the Spanish mainland. A data collection protocol was established to reflect factors which the existing specialized literature, documenting the relation existing in the sample analyzed between time since death and the extent of postmortem change, which in the environments examined are distributed into the following phases: Phase 1 (putrefaction): one week to one month on the surface and two months in water. Phase 2 (initial skeletonization): two months on the surface and five to six months in water. Phase 3 (advanced skeltonization): six months to 1.5 years on the surface and 2.5 years buried. Phase 4 (complete skeletonization): about one year on the surface and three years buried. This paper also provide useful information on the impact of carrion insect activity, location, climate, seasonality, and predator.     

Expert evaluation of the gunshot distance based on the volume of wound canal in flat bones

Different-distance experimental shots were made from a rifled gun at flat bones. Those shot distances were established, at which the wound canal had the smallest volume, and, at which entry and exit holes were virtually identical and matched the bullet diameter. A bigger shot distance was associated with an increasing volume of the wound canal caused by a bigger exit hole. A smaller shot distance led, also, to an increasing volume of the wound canal caused by bigger entry and exit holes. The volume of the wound canal in flat bones can be used as a reliable criterion in assessing the shot distance.     

The forensic medical diagnosis of intoxication of alcohol surrogates by morphological findings

The pathomorphology of intoxication of alcohol surrogates is described. A high frequency rate of DIC-syndrome is shown for the condition. A majority of thrombi accumulates at places with the highest concentrations of toxic substances as well as at those places, through which poisoning substances are brought out of the body, i.e. in the liver (since toxic substances are introduced perorally) and kidneys. Thrombi were detected in all internals, including the brain, in lethal intoxication. The immediate toxic effect from methanol and from higher spirits can matter in the genesis of changes, including acute swelling and chromatolysis with subsequent cell death. Exclusively cerebral or coagulopathic-cerebral types of thanatogenesis were registered in studied case of intoxication.     

Polymorphism of the central region of D-loop of mitochondrial DNA and personality identification by forensic medicine methods

Polymorphism of mDNA D-loop central region (CR), positions 16366-0072) was studied versus hypervariable sections (HVS1), positions 16024-16365, and HVS2, positions 00073-00340, for a sample of 71 residents of the Russian Federation. Ten polymorphic positions with 56 nucleotide substitutions, 55 of which are transitions, were detect in the CR section; no insertions or deletions were found there. It was proven as possible to use the mDNA CR locus as an additional identification marker in the forensic-expert of the mDNA control region. The probability of random coincidence (RC) of haplotypes in joint typing of HVS1, HVS2 and CR made 0.0208, which is 1.4-fold less versus the same parameter for haplotypes HVS1/HVS2 (RC = 0.0284).