The cutaneous ink sign: a tipoff to suicide or suicide notes

The presence of smeared or unsmeared ink on the skin resulting from the writing process has been observed in a number of suicide victims who have left suicide notes. The authors report a case of a palmar "cutaneous ink sign" and discuss its forensic science import.     

Reviews

Rajan Menon, Soviet Power and the Third World. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986, ix + 261 pp. £18.50.

Georgi Arbatov, Cold War or Detente? The Soviet Viewpoint. London: Zed Books, 1983. xviii + 219 pp. £16.95, $30.00 h/b; £4.95, $8.95 p/b.

Jonathan Steele, World Power: Soviet Foreign Policy under Brezhnev and Andropov. London: Michael Joseph, 1983, xii + 287 pp. £14.95.

Imre Vincze, The International Payments and Monetary System in the Integration of the Socialist Countries, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1984, ix + 185 pp. £20.50, $32.00.

M. M. Kostecki ed. The Soviet Impact on Commodity Markets, London: Macmillan, 1984, xl + 271 pp. £25.00.

Gerhard Fink ed. East‐West Economic Relations Now and in the Future: Die Ost‐West‐Wirtschaftsbeziehungen heute und morgen, Vienna: Springer‐Verlag, 1985, 100 pp. DM 34,00.

András Köves, The CMEA Countries in the World Economy: Turning Inwards or Turning Outwards, Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó, 1985, 248 pp. £18.25.

Ger P. van den Berg, The Soviet System of Justice: Figures and Policy, Martinus Nijhoff, Dordrecht, Boston, Lancaster (series Law in Eastern Europe No. 29) 1985, xiii + 374 pp incl appendices, indices and references, £56.95, $71.50.

Eugene Huskey, Russian Lawyers and the Soviet State. The Origins and Development of the Soviet Bar, 1917–1939. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986, xii + 247 pp. £19.00.

David Lane, Labour and Employment in the USSR. Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books (distributed by Harvester Press), 1986, 280 pp. £28.50.

Martin McCauley and Stephen Carter, eds. Leadership and Succession in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China. London: Macmillan, 1986, xiii + 256 pp. £27.50 h/b, £8.95 p/b.

Leslie Holmes, Politics in the Communist World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986, xi + 457 pp. £25–00 h/b, £9.95 p/b.

Peter Kenez, The Birth of the Propaganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917–1929. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. xi + 308 pp. £27.50, $39.50 h/b, £9.95, $12.95 p/b.

Joseph J. Collins, The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: a Study in the Use of Force in Soviet Foreign Policy. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1986, xv + 197 pp. £22.50, $31.25.

Leszek Buszynski, Soviet Foreign Policy and Southeast Asia. London: Croom Helm, 1986, 303 pp. £25.00.

William J. Kelly, Hugh L. Shaffer and I. Kenneth Thompson, Energy Research and Development in the USSR: Preparations for the Twenty‐First Century. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1986, xvi + 417 pp. £62.50.

Gregory D. Andrusz, Housing and Urban Development in the USSR, London: Macmillan in association with CREES, University of Birmingham, 1985, xix + 354 pp. £30.00.

Jane Ellis, The Russian Orthodox Church: a Contemporary History, London & Sydney: Croom Helm, 1986. 531 pp. £27.50.

Edward Acton, Russia: The Present and the Past, London and New York: Longman, 1986, xiii + 342 pp. £17.50 h/b, £8.95 p/b.

Robert Service, Lenin: A Political Life. Vol. 1. The Strengths of Contradiction. London: Macmillan, 1985, x + 246 pp. £25.00.

Abbott Gleason, Peter Kenez and Richard Stites, eds., Bolshevik Culture. Experiment and Order in the Russian Revolution. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985, xii + 304 pp., $27.50.

Josef Garlinski, Poland in the Second World War, London: Macmillan, 1985, xxi + 387 pp., £25.00

Andreas Dorpalen, German History in Marxist Perspective. The East German Approach. London: I. B. Tauris & Co., 1985, 542 pp., £24.50.

Walter Parchomenko, Soviet Images of Dissidents and Nonconformists. New York: Praeger, 1986, xv + 251 pp., $33.95.

Soviet Armed Forces Review Annual. Vol. 9 (1984–1985). Edited by David R. Jones. Gulf Breeze, Florida: Academic International Press, 1986. x + 313 pp., $69–50.     

Civil commitment of the mentally ill: an overview

This article discusses historical themes that led to the civil commitment reforms of the sixties and seventies. The changes in the substantive criteria for commitment are analyzed and critiqued. The author believes that the present criteria tend to focus so specifically on various external indicia of mental illness that they render commitment difficult for many seriously ill patients. An alternative commitment scheme is discussed.     

System of cities dynamics in newly industrializing nations

Rapid industrialization in such countries as Korea, Malaysia, and Taiwan suggests that the complex functional structures of cities in the periphery may appear early in development. This paper proposes a 4-stage framework for the dynamics of a system of cities in a developing country undergoing industrialization and encompassing both nonindustrial and industrial development. The synthesis is assessed with evidence from the newly industrializing Asian nations of Korea, Malaysia, and Taiwan. The 4 stages of cities' industrial change include 1) increasing primacy with industrial satellites, 2) increasing primacy with industrial satellites and nodal towns on a transport network, 3) rapidly increasing primacy with rapidly growing industrial satellites and nodal towns on the transport network, and 4) decreasing primacy with slowly growing industrial satellites and rapidly growing peripheral industrial towns. The 4-stage synthesis suggests that economic development in the periphery may occur even while the primate city maintains its hegemony over control and coordination functions. Peripheral industrial growth does not challenge this hegemony. The growth of industrial cities is, instead, part of a process of regional specialization in which the low cost labor in the periphery becomes an attraction for industry. These stages are not inevitable. Government efforts are necessary to develop rural areas in terms of social improvements (education and health), capital infrastructure (transportation and utilities), and fair payments to farmers for their outputs. These seem to be the lessons learned from the industrialization process in Korea, Malaysia, and Taiwan.     

Ethical concerns expressed by forensic psychiatrists

A survey was made of American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) forensic psychiatrists to evaluate whether there is concern among them about potential ethical problems in criminal justice work. Of the respondents, 93.8% had encountered such problems. The main concerns indicated were about those psychiatrists who become a "hired gun," become an advocate, do not give an honest opinion, or have problems with confidentiality. The need for ethical guidelines and further debate about ethical issues is presented.     

Unusual hanging deaths

Four unrelated hanging deaths involving young white males, all in enlisted status in the United States military, are presented. Taken in a military context, one scene served as a suicide note equivalent with the unmistakable message of extreme defiance toward military regulations. In two cases, the elaborate attire of the decedents could have lead to the misclassification of the manner of death if investigative information had not been considered. Extensive background investigation and review of medical records in the fourth case disclosed that the victim had an eight- to ten-year history of compressing his neck to cause unconsciousness. He left an extensive suicide note in which he concluded that "hanging would be good." Each case has certain unique features, as a group, the cases all demonstrate a continuum from obvious suicide to cases where the manner of death is, at first, equivocal.     

Introduction to the Baby Jane Doe papers

A conference was held at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in October 1984 to discuss the controversy concerning treatment of a newborn with severe congenital defects that became known as the Baby Jane Doe case. Fox provides some background information on the case to introduce a set of of six articles consisting of papers delivered at the conference. These articles deal with historical aspects of the treatment debate (Stanley J. Reiser), problems of clinical decision making (John M. Freeman), the legal issues involved (John A. Robertson), coverage of the case by the media (Stephen Klaidman and Tom L. Beauchamp), federal efforts to regulate the treatment of handicapped newborns (Lawrence D. Brown), and the alliance that arose between opponents of abortion and advocates of the rights of the handicapped (Constance Paige and Elisa B. Karnofsky).     

Sudden infant death syndrome. Morphology update for forensic pathologists--1985

Herein presented are current concepts regarding the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) including a definition of the phenomenon and a discussion of its present role in post-neonatal mortality in this country, a few of the recently published results (both clinical and morphological) of the NICHD Cooperative Epidemiologic Study, a report on the status of the so-called "Tissue-Markers for Hypoxia" and a summary of other recent morphologic observations.     

Marfan syndrome. A contribution to forensic medicine cases

A 19-year-old school boy suffered from fluctuating uncharacteristic chest pain in the last 20 h before his death. He died unexpectedly within a few minutes of a hemopericardium, which resulted from an aneurysmal rupture of the ascending aorta. The patient's past history as well as the autopsy and ultrastructural findings led to the diagnosis of Marfan's syndrome with alterations of the cardiovascular skeletal system but no ophthalmological involvement ("oligosymptomatic" form of Marfan's syndrome). Appraisal of the cause of death is made more difficult by the fact that medical treatment was undertaken on the same day, whereby subtotal liver crushing was established that had resulted from attempts at resuscitation.     

Non-commercial, accidental water transport (boating) fatalities

A study of non-commercial accidental water transport (boating) fatalities was performed on the case files of the Office of the Medical Examiner of Metropolitan Dade County in Miami, Fla., during the years 1980-1984. A total of 23 cases were collected and analyzed as to the age, race, sex, and the cause of death of the victim along with the blood alcohol content and the Urine EMIT drug screen at autopsy. Furthermore, the type of boat involved, the geographic locale, the time of the incident, the reason or risk factor for the incident, and the scene circumstances were also noted. Commonly, one is dealing with a male population below the age of 30 years who die of drowning. In approximately half of the cases alcohol is detected. The scenario involves "small" boats or canoes in the Atlantic Ocean or in canals in the afternoon or evening. Inexperience in boating/or stupidity plays a key role. A discussion ensues concerning recommendations designed to avoid such tragedies.