Forensic Science Fiction The mystery of the assassinated prince When I got a telephone call from the Indian High Commission in Timbuktoo, I was relaxing in my bed with a cup of coffee and the morning newspaper. My wife was sitting besides me, and we were gossiping. Nothing irritates me more at such times than a telephone call. With some measure of irritation, I picked up the receiver. “Is it Dr. Aggrawal, Professor of Forensic Medicine at the Maulana Azad Medical College?”, a faint voice asked from the other side. “That’s right”, I replied. “Dr. Aggrawal, I am Abhinav Sinha, High Commissioner of the Indian High Commission in Timbuktoo. We are in a great problem. We have a doctor here, who is being falsely framed in a medical negligence case. I am convinced he is innocent. Could you please come and help us?” and without waiting for my reply, added, “Your tickets are being sent to your house, along with some money to take care of your travel expenses. All the hospitality here will be taken care of by us.” “Look.. .”, I protested, “I don’t know what your problem is, and I am really not sure I can help you in this case. Moreover I can’t possibly leave my college for any great length of time.” “Everything has been taken care of sir. Your trip is official. You will be treated as on duty. All expenses paid. Please come as soon as possible”, and he hung up. I was quite nonplussed, and I was almost sure, it was some practical joker trying to play a fast one on me. But within five minutes, I received a phone call from the Ministry repeating the same thing almost verbatim. Within half an hour, a government official came to my house with some travelers cheques and a club class return air ticket to Timbuktoo. There was an accompanying letter from someone higher up in the Ministry asking me to proceed to Timbuktoo immediately. It also said that I would be treated as on duty. There was no option now. The flight was at 9 pm. I looked at my watch. It was still 8 am. I had about 13 hours for preparations. I requested my wife to start packing. For those, who are not aware of Timbuktoo, it is a very tiny principality somewhere in the Middle of Africa - quite near Lake Victoria. It is a hereditary monarchy. Elections have never taken place here. Kings have been ruling this principality since time immemorial from the same family clan. Mostly the eldest son gets the chance to rule, but sometimes court intrigues result in murders, and the younger brother gets the throne. There have been cases, when a still younger brother has in turn killed his second brother and got the throne! In short, the history of this principality is rife with murders, court intrigues, treachery, debauchery and so on. Our country had no diplomatic relations with this country till sometime back, but recently in the wake on the so-called Non Aligned Movement, we had developed diplomatic relations with them. A small mission had been opened there, which was staffed by just six people. One of them was a young Indian doctor, whose main job was to look after the Indian officials and their families, as the medical fraternity in that principality was really in a very nascent stage. After a relatively comfortable nine hour flight, I landed at the King Hassan Airport in Timbuktoo. The High Commissioner of the mission was there personally to take me to my hotel. Along with him was the young doctor posted in the Mission. His name was Dr. Harish. While I was being driven to my hotel, I looked out of my window, and was amazed at the clean air and greenery all around in that tiny nation. Coming from New Delhi, it was certainly a very welcome change. The hotel was comfortable and clean. After I took bath and changed, the duo narrated their story to me, and it was something like this: Ndubuisi Eke was the king of this nation since about three years. He had a younger brother called Mombutu Eke, who wanted to usurp his throne. On 18 February 2001 - a Sunday - when Ndubuisi was taking his morning stroll, one unidentified man came from somewhere and stabbed him in the neck. The attack was so sudden that Ndubuisi’s two bodyguards couldn’t do anything. However there were rumors that they had been “bought” and did not try to stop the attacker on purpose. There was an immediate commotion all around, and in the mêlée that ensued, the attacker managed to slip away. Again people who had an ear to the ground said that this was also stage managed. The killer was someone hired by Ndubuisi’s younger brother Mombutu, who wanted to usurp his throne. As luck would have it, Ndubuisi did not die immediately thereafter. He did however receive a nasty gash in the neck. As the whole of Timbuktoo did not have a reasonably smart surgeon, he was brought to Dr. Harish in the Indian Embassy. To be sure, he too was young and rather inexperienced, but better than the best Timbuktooan doctor. Dr. Harish tried his best to save Ndubuisi, but he died immediately after arriving at the hospital. No autopsy was ever conducted on the body, and the body was cremated in haste. Mombutu Eke ascended the throne immediately thereafter. However the public - who loved Ndubuisi no end - was restless. In Mombutu, they saw a killer and usurper. There were hushed voices all around. And perhaps to silence his critics - and perhaps to clear him as well - Mombutu ordered an enquiry against Dr. Harish. It certainly was against diplomatic norms. But as far as Mombutu was concerned, it didn’t matter as his throne was in jeopardy. He wanted to show that the wound received by Ndubuisi was not fatal, and the death occurred instead because of Dr. Harish’s negligence. It was where I came into picture. I was to prove that Dr. Harish had tried his best. There was no negligence on his part and the death occurred prima facie because of the wound. But how could I do that? Had Ndubuisi’s body been with us, it would have been a relatively simple matter for me. All that I needed to do in that case was to conduct a thorough autopsy on his body to find out the correct cause of death. But the body had already been cremated in haste. Now all I had in my possession were some reports prepared by Dr. Harish, when Ndubuisi first arrived at the hospital. I interviewed Dr. Harish in great detail. He was young and inexperienced, but certainly a very bright doctor. Obviously he was terrified. He was being prosecuted in an alien land, and if found guilty, they could send him behind bars for a lengthy period of time. Something had to be done very fast. Fortunately Dr. Harish had prepared a very detailed injury report. I read the injury report over and over again, and found that the most significant part was that his left sternocleidomastoid had received a gash 6x2x4.5 cm in size. It was that wound which appeared fatal to me. But the volume of blood that Ndubuisi lost was not very much. Dr. Harish had immediately sutured the wound. At a rough guess, he had lost about 500 cc of blood. Now that is not sufficient to cause death by shock. One would require at least 2000 cc for that. Obviously Ndubuisi had died because of some other reason. But what? That was the million dollar question. I could not sleep that night. I kept thinking the whole night. And I do not know when I fell asleep. But soon I started dreaming. I saw Ndubuisi going down and down in deep water. He was struggling to stay at the surface. But something was taking him down and down. Bubbles of air were streaming through his nostrils. Bubbles of air.. .. I woke up with a start. It came to my mind in a flash. It had to be air embolism! Perhaps I was thinking about air embolism subconsciously. That is why I dreamed of those air bubbles, perhaps. For recapitulation, let me state what air embolism is. It was Rudolf Virchow, the famous 19th Century German pathologist who introduced the term embolus and embolism into modern medicine. In 1856 he applied the term embolus to a loose clot in the blood stream. These words are of Greek origin and come from the Greek word “emballe” meaning to throw in, or to lay in or to put in as a stopper, peg or bolt. A loose blood clot in the circulation indeed acts as a stopper or a peg. As long as it travels in vessels bigger than its size, it is alright, but as soon as it encounters a vessel smaller than its own size, it gets stuck there, acting as a stopper or a peg. Many of you would be surprised to know that embolism is used in a general sense too, meaning the adding or “throwing in” of an extra day to the year. In relation to medicine, we usually speak of embolism in relation to blood clots which travel from leg veins upwards and get lodged in pulmonary arteries. This is a serious condition causing almost instantaneous death. Under certain conditions - as when veins are cut - air can get sucked inside the veins. It forms a bubble inside and this bubble travels towards the heart along with the blood stream, and gets lodged in the pulmonary arteries just as a blood clot does. A bubble of air is incompressible, and there is no way the blood stream can negotiate this bubble. Inside the vein this bubble acts just like a blood clot. That is, it blocks the circulation just as effectively as does ordinary blood clots, causing immediate death. It is almost as if someone had put an arterial clamp over that place! Detecting ordinary blood clots in pulmonary arteries, or for that matter anywhere else in the body, is relatively easy, but detecting air embolism is a different game altogether. It remains one of the most challenging tasks faced by a forensic pathologist. The reason is that the moment you open pulmonary arteries, the bubble is going to disappear in the air. For this reason, forensic pathologists usually dissect the heart under water in suspected cases of air embolism, but believe me it is a very difficult and challenging procedure. Nobody loves it. There is a silver lining though. If you are suspecting air embolism in a case, before you start the autopsy, one of the best things you can do is to X-ray the body. If an air bubble is present in the heart or pulmonary arteries, it will show up in the X-rays. So you conduct this difficult procedure only in the cases in which you see the bubble in the X-rays, and leave out the rest. In fact, the X-ray plate itself is proof that the person died of air embolism and many forensic pathologists don’t take the trouble to dissect the heart under water after that. But we all know, no post mortem was ever conducted on Ndubuisi. Even if it had been conducted, I am doubtful, if anyone would have been able to detect the cause of death as air embolism, as there was no forensic pathologist in the whole of Timbuktoo. I was now in a very unenvious position. I did not have the dead body of Ndubuisi, and I had to prove that he had died of air embolism. That was the only way to save Dr. Harish. Only then we could prove conclusively that it was the initial stab wound which caused the death (by air embolism), and not negligence on the part of Dr. Harish. But how could I do it? That was the million dollar question. In the evening, I was sitting by the lakeside looking at the beautiful lake and the birds leisurely floating in it. I was recalling my younger days, when we had to send almost all bodies for X-rays, in which we suspected air embolism. Then for many months, our X-ray unit was out of order, and we had to start the autopsy without the benefit of the initial X-ray plates. This meant that effectively we had to open all hearts under water and nobody liked that. You have to make a sac in the pericardial cavity by making appropriate cuts in the pericardium; then you fill that pericardial sac up with water with an assistant holding up both the flaps of pericardium with forceps; and then finally you inserted the blade in the pulmonary artery and under various heart cavities, twisting and turning it expecting a bubble to rise through water. Not many forensic pathologists love this. And many complained. To solve the problem, I came up with an interesting formula. I had for long observed that more people tend to die of embolism if the cut was longer and deeper. Similarly if the muscle involved was more voluminous, chances of air embolism were higher than if the muscle were less voluminous. Thus if someone got a 5 cm cut in gluteus maximus, he would stand much greater chances of getting air embolism than if he got a cut of the same size in, say, temporalis muscle. It was because temporalis muscle is less massive than gluteus maximus. Could I turn this observation into a strict mathematical formula, I had asked myself at that time. And quite interestingly I did come up with an interesting formula. It was: E=mc² Now if you think you are already familiar with the formula, probably you are wrong. E in our formula stands for Embolism (rate of), m for muscle mass (in grams) and c was a somewhat complicated parameter, which I called the “Cut factor”. I had observed that air embolism tended to depend both on the length and the depth of the cut, but depth had a greater effect on producing air embolism than the length. Thus if the length of the cut was twice, the chances of air embolism in a person would be doubled, but if the depth was twice, the chances would be four times. To take this observation into account, I put the Cut factor equal to [(cut depth)2 x (cut length)]. The interesting thing about this formula was that this stands true across all animal species. Once this formula was in place, we applied it in some experimental animals too, namely rats, guinea pigs, hamsters and pigs. To my satisfaction the formula proved true in all cases. Now as you can see, this formula actually gives the rate of embolism. To put it in other words, it would give you the probability that the person might have suffered air embolism. What we did with this formula was to look at the muscle which was cut and the size of the cut, and put the numbers in the formula (we had to put the decimal back by four digits, i.e. we had to effectively divide the figure by 10,000 to arrive at the correct rate of probability). If we got a figure, say, 50, it effectively meant that the person had a 50% chance of getting air embolism. If we got a figure of, say, just 2, there was just a two percent chance of getting air embolism and the forensic pathologist could perhaps look the other way and forget about dissecting the heart under water. Gradually all forensic pathologists in our institution got round to opening the heart under water if the figure was greater than 50. This made sense too, because if the probability of getting an air embolism is greater than 50%, you must take enough trouble to find it out. For those, who are able to follow me only vaguely, I would illustrate with an example. Gluteus maximus’ weight on the average is 493 g. Now if it sustains a cut which is 5 cm long and 3 cm deep, what are the chances that the person would die of air embolism? We would calculate it as follows: The cut is 5 cm long and 3cm deep. Since the cut factor is equal to [(cut depth)² x (cut length)], simple mathematics would show that it would be 45. Now putting this figure in our earlier formula E=mc² We get 493 x 452 or 998325 We put four decimals behind and we get 99.8325. This means that a person getting a 5 cm long and a 3 cm deep cut would stand a 99.8325% chances of getting an air embolism. This is well near hundred percent, and I would certainly like to take all trouble to dissect the heart under water. Over the years this formula had gained International acceptance, and almost every forensic pathologist was using it in his day-to-day practice. Could I use this formula in Ndubuisi’s case? Then suddenly I remembered that Dr. Harish had been careful enough to record the dimensions of the cut quite accurately. I jumped and ran back to my hotel room. Once inside the hotel room I phoned Dr. Harish immediately and in a most excited voice asked him to give me the dimensions of the cut. He was a little surprised at my strange request but gave the figures to me. The dimensions were 6x2x4.5 cm. Now my only problem was to find out the weight of the sternocleidomastoid muscle. I am no anatomist and did not know its weight at all. But fortunately I have many good anatomists as friends. One of them is Dr. R.K.Suri, Professor of Anatomy at our own medical college. I immediately made an overseas call, forgetting the time difference completely. It was 2 am in India, and he picked up the phone with some measure of irritation. “Dr. Suri, what is the weight of Sternocleidomastoid muscle?” “Is it Dr. Aggrawal?” he asked in great irritation. “Never mind. The weight?” I insisted. “Why! it is 153 grams. But why do you ask this question in the thick of the night?” He was obviously quite nonplussed. “Thanks” I said, ignoring his question completely, banged the receiver back and got back to crunching numbers. The cut factor in this case would be 121.5 as the length of the wound was 6 cm and its depth 4.5 cm. Now putting all the figures in our good old formula E=mc², we get: 153x(121.5)2 =153 x 14762.25 or 2258624.25 Putting the decimal back by four points, we arrive at the figure 225.862425 I jumped on my feet in glee. The probability of getting air embolism was even greater than 100! To a mathematician it may look silly, but we had encountered such figures before. It meant that the person was sure to get air embolism. Everything was clear now. With such a deep cut on his Sternocleidomastoid muscle, Ndubuisi stood a 225% chance of getting air embolism. In other words, he died of air embolism. That was for sure. We immediately filed our answer in the Law Ministry of Timbuktoo. I am given to believe that the Ministry was going to dismiss that answer too, but before doing that they took the advice of some international forensic experts, and all of them advised that my reasoning was watertight and there was no scope of rebutting it. In fact if they did it, they would go down in the eyes of the International Community as an utterly unjust nation, and would stand the risk of getting completely isolated. Mombutu obviously did not want to take this risk. Dr. Harish was immediately cleared of all charges. I returned back to India, and the very next day went to Dr. Suri and thanked him for the help he rendered us. He was still very very angry with me, especially because I had banged the phone on him, but when he heard the great service he had rendered for our nation, he forgot all anger and is once again a very great friend of mine.

Anil Aggrawal's Internet Journal of Book Reviews Aims and Objectives This journal has been started by Dr Anil Aggrawal, Professor of Forensic Medicine at the Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi - 110002. Dr. Aggrawal is quite keen to interact with people who are interested in books. Dr. Aggrawal adores books and literally thrives on them. Though being a medical doctor specializing in forensic medicine, he loves books on all subjects encompassing such diverse ranges from astronomy and zoology to paleontology, history, occult science, philosophy, mathematics, and classical literature, et al. His penchant for books was conceived quite early in life. Even as a three year old he always pined for books instead of toys-as his siblings did. There is a legend about the Greek mathematician and engineer Archimedes (ca. 287 B.C. - ca. 212 B.C.). When Roman armies sacked Syracuse in 212 B.C. he was busy studying a geometrical figure made in sand. When a Roman soldier commanded him to come along, he motioned to him imperiously, "Don't disturb my circles". The soldier felt so insulted that he killed Archimedes on the spot! In a similar situation Dr. Aggrawal would probably say, "Don't disturb my books!" Writers and thinkers have always been his idols. Some of the people who have inspired him are (i)Lord Buddha (he remains first on his list) (ii)Albert Einstein (iii)Robert James Fischer (The only American who has been an official World Chess Champion) and (iv)Isaac Asimov (he wrote close to 500 books, and is reputed to be the only author to have published books in all ten categories of the Dewey Decimal System! Oh, well, we all know it's not true, but he has really written so widely, it seems cruel to challenge this statement.) Aggrawal is no Asimov, but like him, he loves writing books. He has written nine books so far (till 2006 end). Four of them are quiz books, which reflect his morbid passion for quizzes. The books, in order they were published are (i) 1000 Crime Quiz (published 30 March 1992) (ii)1000 Love & Sex Quiz (published 13 August 1992) (iii) Some Common Ailments (Published 27 January 1993)(iv)The Book of Medicine (Published 5 February 1994) (v)Narcotic Drugs (Published on 2 May 1995) (vi) 1000 Biology Quiz (Published on 29 August 1995) (vii)Modern Diagnostics (Published on 8 March 2001) (viii) Health Quiz Book (Published on 5 August 2002) (ix) Self Assessment and review of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology (the first book related to his profession). And since we all love statistics, here is a detailed statistics of these books. Here they are: Book Statistics Book 1000 Crime Quiz 1000 Love & Sex Quiz Some common Ailments The Book Of Medicine Narcotic Drugs 1000 Biology Quiz Modern diagnostics Health Quiz Book Self assessment and review of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology Started On 1.2.91 1.6.91 1.6.91 Nov 92 1.1.93 6.1.92 1995 Feb 2002 2005 Completed On 31.5.91 5.1.92 28.11.91 Jan 93 9.5.94 17..3.93 1995 July 2002 2006 Submitted On 31.5.91 7.1.92 28.11.91 15.1.93 9.5.94 19.3.93 1996 July 2002 April 2006 Published March 1992 Aug 1992 Jan 1993 Frb 1994 May 1995 Aug 1995 March 2001 Aug 2002 May 2006 Publisher Rupa Rupa NBT Rupa NBT Rupa NBT Ocean Books PeePee Cost 30 30 25 30 46 80 80 200 295 (Books published till 2007 end) N.B. 1. NBT stands for National Book Trust, India. 2. Dates mentioned are in this format: day/month/year. 3. The cost is in Indian Rupees. 4. Some Common Ailments has been translated in Assamiya, Bangla, Hindi, Kannada, Konkani, Marathi, Nepalese, Oriya, Punjabi, Telugu and Urdu (Total 12 languages). 5. Narcotic Drugs has been translated in Assamiya, Bangla, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu (Total 6 languages). 6. Health Quiz Book has been translated in Hindi (Total 2 languages). Why is Dr. Aggrawal interested in writing book reviews? Whenever he reads a book he tries to discover its strong points. There is a subconscious effort on his part perhaps, to incorporate those points in his own writings. He then wants to share his findings with everyone. In the year 2000, he started an Internet Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, and out of his sheer interest in books, he included a book review section to it. The unprecedented popularity of the review section took him by complete surprise. He received books from authors and publishers in thousands. And they belonged to all subjects-not only forensic medicine and toxicology, which he had intended at the inception of the above journal. With time he and his group realized that they must conjure another journal devoted solely to Book Reviews for books of all genre. In this all-new journal they would accommodate all kinds of books, and hence the present Anil Aggrawal's Internet Journal of Book Reviews. Dr. Aggrawal fondly cites the examples of many regular journals (not devoted to book reviews), which have come out with issues especially devoted to book reviews. One pertinent example is Archives of Sexual Behavior, which came out with an issue (Volume 28, Number 5 / October, 1999, pages 377-467) especially devoted to book reviews in 1999. -Puneet Setia Journal Associate

Forensic Toxicology THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE MARCH 2000 ISSUE THE POISON SLEUTHS DEATH BY RADON -Dr. Anil Aggrawal "Good morning doctor. Oh, my God, what are you doing today? You have the dead body of a middle aged man today. What happened to him? Please tell me.” “Good morning Tarun. The name of this 45 year old man is Ramlal, and he was working in a drug factory. He was living with his invalid wife and a 20 year old son, in his ancestral house for the last so many years. For some months now, he was not feeling well. His friends and relatives were constantly advising him to see some doctor, but he refused to believe he was sick. He died today morning. Normally in such cases, no police enquiry occurs, but this man was a Union leader, and there have been widespread rumors that the management somehow managed slow poisoning in his case. It has been alleged that this was particularly easy for the management to do so, as he was working in a drug factory, and all sorts of harmful drugs were available to the management. The pressure of the workers was so much, that the police had to arrest the top management people. Currently they are in police custody, and can’t meet anyone." "So what do you think doctor?" "Tarun, I have just now conducted a thorough autopsy on him, and I found that he has died because of lung cancer. Now there is no poison except one that can induce lung cancer, and that is the Radon gas." "You mean someone gave him radon gas to kill him? That sounds preposterous." "I will talk about it later. But first some investigations that I did in this case. When I found that his body was unusually radioactive, I visited his house, and was not very surprised to find a great amount of radioactivity in his house too. In fact this is what I had expected." "From where is that radioactivity coming doctor? Did someone from the management lace his house with radon gas?" "Tarun, the radioactivity in all probability is coming from the underground." "From the Underground? I really don't understand that. Now doctor, I feel I must know the radon story from the beginning. Otherwise I won't be able to follow you intelligently. Kindly tell me the radon story from the beginning." "Tarun, Let me tell you about some general facts about Radon first. It is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas found in Group 0 of the Periodic Table. It has a density of 9.25 g per cubic decimeter. In fact, it is the heaviest gas known. It is 7.5 times heavier than air and more than 100 times heavier than hydrogen. The gas liquefies at -61.80 C (-800 F) and freezes at -710 C (-960 F). On further cooling, solid radon glows with a soft yellow light that becomes orange-red at the temperature of liquid air (-1950 C [-3190 F]). Natural radon consists of three isotopes. They have the atomic weights of 219, 220 and 222, and thus are written as radon-219, radon-220 and radon-222 respectively. In chemistry the usual practice of writing the atomic weights is on the upper left hand side of the element symbol; thus the three isotopes are often represented as 219Rn, 220Rn and 222Rn. The half life of all three varieties is very short. But among themselves, the shortest half life is that of the variety having least atomic weight, and the longest half life is that of the variety having the maximum atomic weight. Thus the half life of 219Rn is only 3.92 seconds. Half life, as you surely know is the period, in which the original amount of a radioactive material is reduced by half. The half life of 220Rn is slightly more; 51.5 seconds. The longest lived of all is 222Rn, but even this variety has a half life of just 3.823 days. All the three varieties do not occur in nature as such, but are produced as a result of decay of other radioactive materials. 222Rn is produced by the decay of Radium; 220Rn from the decay of Thorium, and 219Rn from the decay of Actinium. In fact their parent elements give them their more popular names. 222Rn, since it is produced from radium, is known as radon. For similar reasons, 220Rn and 219Rn are known as thoron and actinon respectively. Thus when we speak of radon, we usually refer only to the isotope 222Rn. The other varieties, i.e. thoron and actinon, may be referred to as the isotopes of radon. I may tell you that the first isotope of radon to be discovered was thoron, which was discovered in 1899 by the British scientists R.B. Owens and Ernest Rutherford, who noticed that some of the radioactivity of thorium compounds could be blown away with the passage of time. Radon was discovered in 1900 by the German chemist Friedrich E. Dorn. The last isotope of radon to be discovered was actinon which was found in 1904, independently by Friedrich O. Giesel and André-Louis Debierne. Although these three are the naturally occurring isotopes of radon, now more than a dozen artificial radioactive isotopes of radon are known. I may tell you that radon and all its isotopes are rare in nature because they are all short-lived and because their sources, radium, thorium and actinium are rare. The atmosphere contains traces of radon near the ground as a result of seepage from soil and rocks, all of which contain minute quantities of radium. You may ask where the radium comes from within the soil and rocks. Actually Radium occurs as a natural decay product of uranium which is present in various types of rocks. It is now known that some tracts of land contain unusually high amounts of uranium beneath. This gives rise to more radium and more radon, which seeps up through the soil and collects in homes if they happen to be built on that land. Radon is now known to cause lung cancer in populations which are exposed to it. Indeed, radon is now thought to be the single most important cause of lung cancer among nonsmokers. By the late 1980s, naturally occurring radon gas had come to be recognized as a potentially serious health hazard. The gas, arising from soil and rocks, seeps through the foundations, basements, or piping of buildings and can accumulate in the air of houses that are poorly ventilated. Exposure to high concentrations of this radon over the course of many years can greatly increase the risk of developing lung cancer. Radon levels are highest in homes built over geological formations that contain uranium mineral deposits. I may tell you that 222Rn is itself radioactive, and it decays into 218Po, which in turn decays into 214Pb, 214Bi, 214Po. These four radionuclides are called the radon daughters. They all become attached to particles in the air and get breathed into lungs. 222Rn, 218Po, 214Po are all alpha emitters. Radiation can cause damage to biological molecules, and can induce cancers, genetic defects and accelerated aging." "Doctor, all this sounds very frightening indeed. You told me that by the late 1980s, radon had come to be recognized as a serious health hazard. Tell me how exactly scientists discovered that radon gas could be emanating from the soil and collecting in the houses." "Tarun, it is a very remarkable story indeed. It started on December 2, 1984, in Pennsylvania, USA. Before that it was known that radon occurs as a serious health hazard in mines, but its occurrence in ordinary homes was not known. During December 1984, the alarm bells in the Limerick nuclear power plant (in Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, USA) were constantly ringing, indicating that someone had been contaminated with radioactivity. But it was not known who it was. There were concerns that the radioactivity might escape and pollute the environment. Then on the fateful day of 2 December 1984, a worker Stanley Watras was found to be unusually radioactive. When more investigations were done, it was surprisingly discovered that the radioactivity was coming from his house. Some people believed that he was stealing some radioactive material from the work place and taking it home, but none was found. Still more investigations showed that unusual amounts of radon were leaking in his house from the underground. The house of Watras was so radioactive that the health risk of living there was the same as smoking hundreds of cigarettes a day! On detailed investigations it was found, that his house straddled a vein of uranium ore. The authorities decided to investigate the levels of radon in other nearby houses and the results were worrying. By the end of 1986, about 20,000 houses had been checked in Pennsylvania, and one in eight were found to be overloaded with radon! Well, here in the table you can find some important dates in radon research in America. (N.B. The table is quite complex and is very difficult to put over the net. Readers desirous of having the table may want to get in touch with the webmaster.) "Oh, that is quite informative." "Gradually, the public became so concerned about radon, that the government found it imperative to decide upon a safe level of radon, which could be allowed in the homes and at workplaces. These levels were called Action Levels. Levels above these Action Levels were considered unsafe and legislations were passed, which could prosecute managements if they allowed radon levels to rise above these prescribed limits. Action Levels for homes were 200 Becquerels per cubic meters (200 Bq m-3), while those for work places were 400 Becquerels per cubic meters (400 Bq m-3).” “Sorry to interrupt you doctor, but I don’t quite understand the concept of Becquerels. Could you please explain me that?” “Sure. Antoine Henri Becquerel, as you surely know was a French physicist who discovered radioactivity through his investigations of uranium and other substances. In 1903 he shared the Nobel Prize for Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie. In his honor, scientists have named the unit of radioactivity. A sample of radioactive substance would be said to have a radioactivity of one Becquerel if in that sample one atom disintegrates per second. So if I say that the level of Radon in a particular home is 200 Becquerels per cubic meters, it means that there is so much Radon in that house that in every cubic meter of that house, 200 atoms of Radon are disintegrating per second. This is a very small Unit. A bigger Unit is Curie, which is equivalent to 3.7 X 1010 Becquerels. You might be surprised at this odd figure. Actually one Curie is the amount of radioactivity given off by one gram of radium. And it is seen that in one gram of radium, about 3.7 X 1010 atoms disintegrate per second. Hence this figure. You might think that the unit Curie is named after Marie Curie, the joint winner of Nobel Prize with Becquerel, but it is actually named after her husband Pierre Curie, who too shared the Prize with them. This is a little known interesting fact. Most people wrongly think that this unit is named after Marie Curie. While I am on the subject, I may tell you something more about the safe levels of Radon in houses. It was found that houses with levels of 2000 Bq m-3 and more were very dangerous places to live in. The house of Stanley Watras had fifty time more radioactivity than this - a radioactivity of 100,000 Bq m-3!” "Doctor, now I know enough about Radon and its dangers. Do you seriously think, someone from the management arranged for the radon gas to be accumulated in Ramlal's house so he could die of lung cancer?" "Tarun, theoretically speaking it is possible, but practically such a possibility is exceedingly low. Radon is not an easy gas to prepare. Concentrated samples of radon are prepared synthetically for medical and research purposes only and that too in highly specialized labs. Typically a supply of radium is kept in a glass vessel in aqueous solution or in the form of a porous solid from which the radon can readily flow. At intervals of a few days, the accumulated radon is pumped off, purified, and compressed into a small tube, which is then sealed and removed. The tube of gas is a source of penetrating gamma radiation, which comes mainly from one of radon's decay products, bismuth-214 (214Bi). Such tubes of radon have been used for radiotherapy and radiography. My initial thought was that Ramlal's house is built on a tract of land which is rich in Uranium, but I had to get the opinion of a geologist before I could finally say anything. I have got that opinion now, and the report says that my guess was correct. Ramlal’s house indeed is constructed over a land rich in Uranium. Come let us tell the police that those management people are innocent, and it was Radon, which took the life of Ramlal. "Unbelievable! This was a most interesting discussion doctor. Tell me what are you going to tell me the next time?" "Tarun, next time, I would tell you about a very interesting poison - Hydrogen Peroxide."

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SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-29 AN UNUSUAL CASE OF SKULL FRACTURE I had a tremendous response for my article on "Forgery of cheques" published in the July 1995 issue of Crime & Detective. One of the best letters was received from Mr. Sanjay Gupta of Florida. He tells me that he is studying air conditioning in Gainsville University, but he is deeply interested in crime and crime related stories. He has liked "Crime & Detective" so much that he has asked one of his friends in New Delhi to keep sending him issues of this magazine regularly. He has also in his possession several crime books. He tells me that decipherment of erasures is possible depending upon the thoroughness of the erasure. No technique will decipher a complete erasure. He has appreciated the way, I solved Mange Ram and Ramesh Chand's case. However he gives us some additional techniques for deciphering partial erasures. Partial erasures can be deciphered using low magnification. Other techniques available to enhance images are (1) examination through coloured filters to enhance contrast, (2) high contrast photography (3) infrared examination. For the benefit of our readers, I may tell that infrared (IR) is just a kind of special kind of light which can not be seen by human eyes. Carbon particles are very opaque to IR light. This means that if carbon particles are present in an ink (as they are in many inks), this technique will enhance the image. He also tells me that erased iron-based fluid inks can be restored by fuming the document with sulfo-cyanic acid which reacts with the iron in the paper to produce a red colour. All readers may not be familiar with the kinds of inks that are available in the market. For them the term "iron-based fluid inks" may be incomprehensible. Well, there are two basic types of fountain pen inks. The iron-gallotannate type was used as early as the eighth century and with substantial improvement is still in use today. Iron salts are combined with gallotannic acid in an aqueous solution. This solution when applied to paper is first colourless but darkens quickly when oxidized by air. Modern inks of this type contain a synthetic blue dye to provide an immediate blue colour to the ink which turns black after oxidation on paper. This explains the origin of the name blue-black fountain pen ink. Blue-black inks are very stable. The ink is insoluble in water and cannot be erased effectively by abrasion. The other type of fountain pen ink consists of an aqueous solution of synthetic dyes. These inks have a bright colour but are not as stable as the blue-black inks. When we talk of iron-based inks, we are actually talking about the iron-gallotannate type of inks. What Mr. Sanjay Gupta tells me is this. Had I fumed the forged check (submitted to the bank by Mange Lal), with sulfo-cyanic acid, I could have got a red colour in place of the words "ve", which were supposed to have been deleted by Mange Lal. Well! well!! I am thoroughly impressed at the depth of technicality our readers are going into. I have since checked up with certain research papers related to forgery of cheques, and have found Sanjay's method perfectly in order. Well Sanjay, thanks for giving us such valuable information. I will certainly keep this thing in my mind for future. Meanwhile I will request our readers to keep sending similar stories, news clippings or other material of interest to me for inclusion in our forthcoming issues. This time I am going to tell you about an unusual case which I solved in 1993. On 23 August 1993, the police found the dead body of an unknown male on the outskirts of Delhi, in a deserted area. From the external appearances, the man appeared to be around 45 years of age. The head of the dead body was badly mutilated and crushed. The skull bones were lying scattered on the ground. The brain matter was completely pulped and was flowing out of the open skull cavity. The mouth was gagged with a cloth, which was later identified as the victim's own handkerchief. Some blood was found around the head of the victim. From first appearances it appeared to be a case of death by blunt force impact. It appeared as if someone had killed him by hitting his head with an iron rod or lathi. The photographs of the victim were published in all the leading dailies. An effort was also made to establish the identity of the victim, by tallying the records of missing persons maintained with the Missing Persons Bureau. Soon a lady by the name of Champa identified the photograph as that of her husband Mewa Lal. He had been missing from the house since 21 August. On that day, Champa along with her two young children had gone to her parent's house for some family wedding. Mewa Lal was to join the family the next day. But he did not turn up. Champa thought that he must have got busy in some work, so she attended the wedding on 22nd. However since she was anxious about her husband, she cut short her stay and returned before schedule in the early morning of 23rd. On coming back home, she found that the front door was ajar, and nobody was inside. She enquired about him in the neighborhood, and from the relatives, but no one could tell anything about Mewa Lal. Mewa Lal was a man of doubtful character. Women were his weakness. He would often flirt with women, spending lavish money on them. In his quest for women, he wouldn't spare even married females. He was lately running an affair with Jaya, a 35 year married female. Jaya hailed from a lower middle class family and was exceptionally beautiful. Her husband Chandran was not earning well, and Jaya always felt the pinch. She would often curse her luck that she had got married to Chandran, who could not even arrange for a day's square meal. Needless to say when Mewa Lal tried to become intimate with her she gladly submitted herself to him. Mewa Lal would give her new Saris, bangles, sandals and other cosmetic items off and on. At times he would even give her cash to meet her day-to-day needs. Jaya did not need anything more than this. So she had surrendered herself completely to Mewa Lal. Mewa Lal was not particularly a rich person. He had no fixed job. He did sundry jobs on a commission basis. This made his earnings very erratic. Sometimes the cash flow would be very good, while at other times, it would be almost nil. His wife Champa was always in financial trouble. She knew that her husband was a flirt, and she also knew that he was lately running an affair with Jaya, but she was helpless. Ever since her marriage, she was telling him by various means, not to engage himself in such activities, but he wouldn't listen. His affairs with Champa had increased his expenses a great deal. According to some estimates of neighbors, he was spending almost Rs. 2,000 on her every month. This was a huge amount for Mewa Lal, who was not earning much. To meet his expenses, he took a loan of Rs. 10,000 (in October 1992) from Kaushik, an affluent person of the town. Kaushik knew Mewa Lal well. In the past he(Mewa Lal) had done some odd jobs for Kaushik. It was agreed that Mewa Lal would return the money to Kaushik within 3 months, with 16% interest. Of course Mewa Lal had no means to return the money to Kaushik, but he did not disclose this fact to him. In Jan 1993, as promised, Kaushik went to Mewa Lal to get his money back along with interest. Mewa Lal didn't even have a single paisa to give him. This generated some tension between the two. However Mewa Lal sent Kaushik back saying that he would soon arrange for money, and settle his account. These were empty promises however. In June 1993, Kaushik had become so frustrated that he had decided to take the help of some muscle power to extract money from him. When police asked Jaya about the murder, some more interesting facts came to light. Jaya told the police that Chandran, her husband left for work on the morning of 21st August. Soon afterwards Mewa Lal came to her house. He was slightly drunk. He told Jaya that his wife had left for her parents' house to attend a marriage and they could have some uninterrupted fun then. Since Chandran was also not at home, they indulged in sexual intercourse as usual. The whole day they spent like that. In the evening Chandran came back early quite unexpectedly. This caught both of them by surprise. Although, Jaya was able to slip Mewa Lal out of the house through the back door, his undergarments were inadvertently left on the cot itself. Chandran's anger knew no bounds, when he saw Mewa Lal's undergarments on his wife's cot. He immediately took his Lathi and left for Mewa Lal's house. Jaya said that he was murmuring very angrily to himself. She couldn't understand much, but he was muttering something to the effect that he would settle the matter once and for all. Her neighbors also confirmed this statement who saw Chandran rushing angrily towards Mewa Lal's house. Jaya told the police further, that Chandran had returned home after about 20-25 minutes only. From his looks, it appeared as if he was very much satisfied. This was the backdrop of the story, against which we had to see the death of Mewa Lal. The police story was that Chandran had killed Mewa Lal with his Lathi, and had returned back satisfied. All the available facts pointed to this only. He had left his house with his Lathi in anger, and had returned back quite satisfied. He was muttering that he would kill Mewa Lal. He (Mewa Lal) had ravaged his wife, so his anger was understandable. But when Chandran was apprehended, he vehemently denied his involvement in murder. It was at this stage that the police contacted me and requested me to help them with the case. A quick look at Mewa Lal's face showed that his face had indeed been battered very badly( Please reproduce top figure on page 594 here-Designate this as Fig 1 ). Many of the pieces of the skull bones were missing. I asked the police where the other missing pieces of bones were. I was told that they had collected everything they found on the scene, and had submitted them to me. I knew that the police had missed several bone pieces. I requested them to take me to the place where the body was lying. At that place also, I couldn't find anything of importance. But sure enough, some of the skull pieces were missing. I knew this because, I couldn't reconstruct the whole skull cap from the pieces of bone available with me. The remaining pieces of bone just couldn't vanish in thin air. Finally I demanded to be taken to Mewa Lal's house. I made a thorough search there. Sure enough I found three skull cap pieces there. They fitted the missing portion of the skull quite neatly. This meant that the killing had been done at Mewa Lal's house itself and the body was later dumped at the place where it was found ultimately. This was the first great advantage of a thorough autopsy. Had the autopsy been done less thoroughly, i.e. if I had not taken the trouble to try to reconstruct the skull, (which was not very necessary too) everybody would have thought that Mewa Lal had been killed in the deserted area itself. The skull had been shattered to such small pieces that it was impossible to piece them together by any conceivable means. Finally I decided to "sew" the pieces together with the help of wires. I drilled holes in the broken skull pieces, passed metal wire through the holes and then stitched them together ( Please reproduce the bottom figure on page 594 here - designate this as Fig 2) . I had to encounter a bigger surprise, when I reconstructed the skull in this manner. Staring before me was one neat round hole in the skull! Look carefully at the reconstructed skull in Fig 2. T he black arrow depicts the outlines of a neat round hole. The full circumference of the hole is not visible because I couldn't fit one piece with the wire (the piece was too small for that). However I fitted that piece at the gap with my bare hands, and the neat round hole was complete in its entirety before me. I placed the skin back on the reconstructed skull, and the bullet hole gaped before me so clear, no one could have missed it ( Please reproduce fig on page 595 here - Designate it as fig 3). This turned the whole police story topsy turvy. It was as if I had gone back in time and was witnessing the murder with my own eyes. Mewa Lal had not been killed by Lathi at all. He had been killed by a gun! This was a startling new fact for the police, brought about only by the autopsy. This changed the police story completely. Chandran was a poor man. It was impossible for him to keep a gun. So in one stroke, Chandran was out of police's clutches. However from the external appearance of the dead body of Mewa Lal, it surely appeared that he had been battered by a Lathi. A less thorough autopsy would have failed to bring out this new fact. Now that we knew that Mewa Lal had been killed by a gun, we knew there had to be a bullet also. We had to recover the bullet also. Since the bullet was not recovered from the body, it had to be at the scene of murder. Since we already knew that Mewa Lal had been killed in his own house, we decided to search his house for the bullet. After a thorough search, we found it buried in a wooden door. The bullet had apparently pierced Mewa Lal's head and had lodged in the door opposite to where Mewa Lal was standing. The story was beginning to become clearer to us now. The only other enemy of Mewa Lal was Kaushik. He had to recover his money from him. Till now, he was not under suspicion at all. But now the police decided to question him too. He seemed nervous from the very start. The police got suspicious and decided to interrogate him in more detail. He was told that Mewa Lal had been killed by a gun, and the police had come to know about it. Kaushik had a licensed revolver. We recovered that revolver. Test fires from that revolver showed that the bullet which was recovered from Mewa Lal's house had indeed been shot from that revolver only. Now Kaushik broke down, and he narrated the whole story to the police. He had gone to Mewa Lal's house on the night of 21 August to recover his money. Mewa Lal once again asked for some more time. This led them to a quarrel. In a sharp fit of anger, Kaushik drew his revolver and shot at Mewa Lal. This killed Mewa Lal instantly. Kaushik had never intended to kill Mewa Lal, but now he had to do something fast. He dumped the body to the outskirts of the city in his jeep. Later, when he heard that the police suspicion had fallen on Chandran, he was too happy. As for Chandran, while he was rushing to Mewa Lal's house in anger, he met one of his friends Raju, who asked what the matter was. When he narrated the whole story to his friend, he discouraged Chandran to resort to violence. He convinced Chandran that he should talk to Jaya with love, and she should understand. Any way Raju was somehow able to convince Chandran, that violence does not solve anything. This seemed to satisfy Chandran somewhat, and he returned home, apparently in peace. Had he gone to Mewa Lal's house, perhaps he would have caught Kaushik stashing away Mewa Lal's body in his jeep. The court admitted my scientific evidence, and convicted Kaushik to life imprisonment. Thus a thorough autopsy helped nab the correct criminal. What on the face of it seemed to be the handiwork of Chandran, turned out to be the deed of Kaushik. This was yet another victory of Forensic Medicine. (To protect the identity of individuals, the names of persons and places, and the dates have been changed)

| Anil Aggrawal's Internet Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology Anil Aggrawal's Internet Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology Call For Reviewers Become a reviewer for Interacting with Anil Aggrawal’s Internet Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology . * This journal receives a large number of manuscripts and other material for publication as original papers/review papers/high resolution pictures for poster presentation/UG material/PG material and contributions for a number of other sections. * To be able to deal with large amount of unprocessed material, we are currently diversifying our reviewer pool. Younger scientists are encouraged specially, so they can be involved in paper publication process. * Interested in reviewing or have questions? Email the editorial office by clicking here . What is peer review ? Peer review is not only the foundation, but a very strong pillar of scientific publishing. It is an honest assessment of a piece of writing by a “peer”, a person who understands and practices the same science. When you are asked to review a manuscript that has been submitted for publication, you are helping the journal to “weed out” unsuitable material, and select what should be included in a well-respected journal. Not only this, simultaneously, your expertise is being acknowledged and your opinion is being valued. Our reviewers – by accepting only high quality original papers – help us to publish only the highest quality research and reviews. Who can become a reviewer? If you are active in the field of forensics/criminology/law and related sciences and can objectively evaluate the quality and rigor of research, we want you! Send us your latest CV attached with your high resolution photograph. We are looking for peer reviewers with following qualities: • Should have sound academic credentials • Should be active in the field of forensics; new research paradigm: interaction process and methodology • Should provide constructive criticism to authors. Benefits of reviewing for this journal Becoming involved in the peer review process for this journal can be a highly rewarding experience for the following reasons: • Reviewers are recognized on an annual basis in the journal; Please Click here to see how reviewers are acknowledged. • If you are interested in joining the editorial board , you would be able to do so, after you have completed 100 peer reviews. • You can get academic credit for your peer review by signing in your Web of Science/Clarivate/ORCID Academic profile. Please click here to sign in or register • You get complimentary access to academic material [papers/books etc needed to consult for reviewing etc.]. You need to send us PMID of the paper required. • You get a reviewers’ certificate after completing 25 reviews. Click here for an example. The peer review process Remember that authors are our friends. Our aim is to improve their manuscripts. If grammar/spellings etc. are wrong, they may be advised to get it corrected through someone who is a native English speaker, or better still with a teacher of English language. The manuscripts are checked especially for originality. We have a zero tolerance for plagiarism. Thus all manuscripts must be checked through an authentic antiplagiarism software [e.g., iThenticate ]. References must always be checked, ensuring specially that they are all in uniform style [Vancouver style]. Manuscripts are always sent to two [in rare cases more also] independent reviewers. Based on the feedback from these reviewers and the editors' judgment, a decision is given on the manuscript.

Book Review Journal Book Review Policy Reviews of Forensic Books/Journals/Software/Multimedia SPREADING AWARENESS The journal strives to spread awareness about the latest forensic literature among the forensic professionals of the world. Every month tens of new books related to forensic sciences and allied subjects are published, but it takes a while before forensic professionals become aware of them. In several cases, they just remain unaware of these publications throughout. I have been personally handicapped by several such instances. I will tell you just one. In 1998, I went to Bijapur (a historical city in Karnataka State in India), to take a guest lecture, and as is my wont, was thumbing through their library books in my spare time. I was amazed to see a nice biography of Thomas Noguchi published sometime in the late seventies. It gave some of his best cases (among them the murder of Dorothy Stratten, Playboy Playmate of August 1979, who was killed by her lover Paul Snider, when she was six months short of her twenty-first birthday. I had been searching for the details of this murder investigation for quite sometime without any success!). I was completely unaware of this book for all these years , and would have given a fortune to possess this book, but alas, the book was already out of print. What pained (and annoyed) me most was that I have been frantically buying books since late sixties, and had I been aware of the existence of this book at the time it was published, I would have done anything to acquire it - even if it would have entailed writing to the publishers overseas. As I pined for this book (and several others - "Pathology of Homicide" by Adelson is another, "Guinness Book of Crime", which I saw at the British Council Library in New Delhi another, "Poisons, Antidotes and Anecdotes" by William Tichy (Sterling Pub. Comp., New York, N.Y., 1977) still another - the list is endless), I became acutely aware that there should be some surefire and foolproof system by which forensic professionals could become aware of important publications soon after they came in existence. We have been running this very successful Internet Journal for quite sometime now. This has become a sine qua non for most professionals around the world (its beauty is that unlike most other online journals, it is available free online to all), and they turn back often to this journal to see what is the latest happening here. And we at the Journal office decided that it would be best to use this journal as a forum to spread awareness. We wrote to several authors and publishers and the response was amazing. We received books from them regularly and as they came in we got down to scanning them, sorting them, describing them. As can be seen, our reviews are radically different from those appearing in most "Paper journals". We give the front and back cover in high color resolution, and also some of the key diagrams, contents, tables etc in full color, which can be enlarged further at the command of the viewer. The idea is to make the reader feel as if he is himself thumbing through the book, and can take an intelligent decision regarding it. We also began reviewing other items related to forensic medicine (Software, Multimedia, Journals). With time, this section also became really valuable for our readers. Encouraged by the response to reviews of Professional Publications, software and multimedia, we took to reviews of popular books on crime too. Again we wrote to several authors and publishers and again the response was encouraging. I think if somebody had been running such a journal twenty years back, all of us would have had much more books in our collection than we have now (I Certainly would have had Thomas Noguchi's book!). But better late than never! (The journal accepts important books, journals, software and multimedia (VHS, CDs, DVDs) related to Forensic Science, Forensic Medicine, Toxicology, Criminology and Allied subjects for extensive reviews. Both technical and general books are reviewed in separate sections. The journal is visited not only by Forensic Professionals from all over the world, but also by general public exploring subjects related to mystery, crime, suspense, intrigue, supernatural and horror. The reviews are usually hosted within two weeks an item is received at the journal office. For more details please visit our FAQ section.) Books and other items for review must be submitted at the following address Professor Anil Aggrawal (Editor-in-Chief) Anil Aggrawal's Internet Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology S-299 Greater Kailash-1 New Delhi-110048 India Phone:+91-11-29235460

Forensic Toxicology THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE APRIL-MAY 1997 ISSUE THE POISON SLEUTHS POISONING BY BORON -Dr. Anil Aggrawal "Good morning doctor. Oh, my God, what are you doing today? You have the body of a young woman here." "You are right Tarun. This woman lying here on my table is Lata. She is a 23 year old young unmarried girl. Her parents tell me that she was not feeling well for the last few days. She got frequent bouts of vomiting and in general was down and out. They insisted to take her to a doctor, but she said the symptoms were not troublesome and she would soon get well. She did not inform her parents but the police has found out during the investigations that about a week back she contacted a quack Dr. Harish for treatment, and allegedly he administered her some medication. Soon after she began to feel nauseated. She had severe diarrhea and vomiting. Her parents tell me that the color of both her feces and vomitus was somewhat bluish green. She was also reported to have severe pain in her stomach, severe convulsions and tremors. They did not know why the symptoms had become so severe and they again insisted to take her to a doctor, but again she declined. Since two days she was feeling extremely lethargic and was having headaches off and on. She again contacted Dr. Harish yesterday and he was reported to have administered something to her again. Within about 2 hours of this she died. Now the police has brought her body to me to tell them how she died." "Should be quite simple. Obviously Dr. Harish has administered some poison to her." "Yes, it appears so. But the question is why he would administer her the poison. The police has talked to Dr. Harish and he seems quite confident that he gave her the correct medicine. He asserts that Lata died of her original illness which she was complaining of." "So what are you going to do now?" "Well, I will have to conduct an autopsy on her dead body. Do you see her fingers and fingernails? Do they not seem abnormal to you?" "Why! they certainly do. They appear as if they have been painted red! Doctor I am getting curious. Please let me know what this is?" "And if you look at her buttocks you would find the same change. In medicine, we call it erythema. It is a kind of inflammation of the skin. The skin as you can see, is sloughing off at several places. Of course the most prominent finding as you have noticed is the marked redness of the skin. You may be surprised to know that in toxicology there is a special term for this change. This is known as "boiled lobster" syndrome. The skin appears like a boiled lobster, doesn't it?" "Now that you tell me, it certainly does. But tell me doctor, does it indicate any particular poison?" "Yes Tarun. It indicates one and only one poison- boron. It appears to me that Dr. Harish gave her one of boron compounds." "What? Boron? Doesn't sound like a poison to me. Poison to me means things like cyanide. Please tell me more about boron." "Tarun, admittedly boron is not a common poison, but it is certainly poisonous and can cause death. Boron in elemental form is not poisonous, but its salts are. Its most common salts are sodium borate, sodium biborate, sodium pyroborate and sodium tetraborate. Boric acid (H3BO3) is a colorless, odorless compound commercially available as granules, and white powder. A teaspoon of 100% boric acid crystals contains approximately 4 g of boric acid..." "Sorry to interrupt you doctor, but does it have any medical use?" "Tarun, it was introduced in 1702 by Homberg as a sedative, pain-killer, and antispasmodic. An antispasmodic relieves spasms, especially those of the stomach and is thus useful in stomach pains. At that time it was widely known as "Homberg's sedative salt". But by next century it had fallen in disfavor till Joseph Lister (1827-1912) revived its use once again employing it as an antiseptic in 1875. A little later- in about 1885- it was used as a food preservative, being frequently added to milk to keep it from rotting. But it was soon discovered that its use as a food preservative can cause serious poisoning. Since then its use as a food preservative has been abandoned, but it has been used in several other forms- as solutions, medicated powders, skin lotions, ointments, toothpastes, mouthwashes, water softeners, topical astringents and antiseptics. In the early part of this century, it was recommended for the treatment of ammoniacal dermatitis in children...." "What is ammoniacal dermatitis, doctor?" "Tarun, dermatitis means inflammation or redness of the skin. Ammoniacal dermatitis is an inflammation of the skin caused by ammonia. You might be surprised how children can get exposed to such an unusual gas as ammonia. Well, the gas is produced as a result of the chemical breakdown of urine by bacteria in the feces. Nappies of very young children can get soiled with both urine and feces. The bacteria in the feces produce ammonia from the urine. Ammonia has a burning effect on soft baby skin. It produces a rash in the surrounding area. Since the rash is in the area of the diaper it is commonly known as diaper or nappy rash. In fact, so commonly was boric acid prescribed for diaper rash, that at one time it was suggested that a history of diaper rash in any infant under the age of one year, who has died unexpectedly, should raise the suspicion of boric acid poisoning! This aphorism was true for two reasons. Not only was it often applied as a remedy for diaper rash but its poisoning in children often took the appearance of a diaper rash, even if did not have it in the first place! You have seen marked redness of the skin in Lata's case; in children the same happens in the diaper area, giving an appearance mimicking diaper rash. Boric acid was once famous for the treatment of burns too. In fact it was successfully used in the treatment of burns sustained in the Cocoanut Grove disaster..." "Sorry to interrupt you once again doctor, but what was the Cocoanut Grove disaster?" "Tarun, Cocoanut Grove was a Boston night club in USA, which caught fire on Nov 28, 1942. A corner of the Lounge had fallen into complete darkness as someone -probably a customer- had taken out a bulb. A 16 year old employee of the club was asked to replace the bulb. He lighted a match in order to illuminate the area and tried to screw the bulb in position, but the match started an artificial palm tree burning, and the fire spread quickly. As a result 491 men and women lost their lives. During the two hours following the onset of fire, 114 casualties were brought to the Massachusetts General Hospital. Many were dead on arrival and many died soon afterwards. Only 39 lived and were treated. In this disaster, the doctors successfully used boric acid to treat many cases of burns. Following this success, it began to be used widely in the treatment of burns as a sterile boracic ointment in place of tannic acid, which was being used earlier. But it was once again shown that poisonous amounts of boric acid can get absorbed from burn wounds and can cause serious symptoms..." "So it appears boric acid is no good as a medicine after all" "You can say that again. British Medical Association in 1966 published a statement in which practitioners were advised to refrain from prescribing boric acid and related salts in any form of treatment. The Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain in the same year advised pharmacists not to sell boric acid as a dusting powder, nor to supply borax in any form. Boric acid solutions have been used as antiseptic irrigating solutions for cleaning wounds and abscesses and even internally for irrigating bladder, pleural cavity and lower bowel, but as I have already told you, it may produce toxicity. Other poisonous compounds of boron are the boron hydrides.." "Doctor please tell me something about boron hydrides." "Tarun, Boron Hydrides are a class of chemical compounds having the general formula BnHn+4. They have been investigated as possible propellant fuels as they have nearly double the energy content of standard hydrocarbon fuels. Examples include diborane (B2H6), a gas; pentaborane (B5H9) a liquid, and decaborane (B10H14), a solid under standard conditions. They oxidize vigorously to produce boric acid, water and much heat. Some of the hydrides are spontaneously pyrophoric, i.e. they have the capability of catching fire spontaneously in air, just like phosphorus. Boron hydrides are extremely poisonous compounds. It is believed that they are even more poisonous that cyanide! Levels in air as low as 0.005 parts per million may be toxic!" "Have poisonings occurred from boron hydrides as well?" "Yes surely. Boron hydrides are used in the industry for several purposes. You must be knowing that for making semiconductors, the wafer of silicon has to be "doped" with boron. This doping is done with boron hydrides. There are several other complicated uses of boron hydrides in the industry. Cases have occurred when pentaborane has accidentally released in industrial area and poisoned the workers. This can cause quick death. Another curious boron preparation is the Dobell's solution...." "What is Dobell's solution doctor?" "Tarun, Dobell's solution was first prepared by the London physician Horace Benge Dobell (b. 1828) in the last century. It consists of a solution of borax, sodium bicarbonate, phenol and glycerine in water and it was used as an antiseptic in the last century and in the early part of this century. Borax (Na2B4O7.10H2O), another poisonous boron compound has been known as a cleaning agent since the days of the Greek and Roman empires and has long been used as a food preservative in Europe and America. Today the principal compound of boron easily available to a common man is sodium perborate. It is an oxidizer which is normally present in tooth powders and toothpastes. It is available to the general public in powder or tablet form for the cleansing of dentures. The white tablets of sodium perborate look quite like sweets and may be taken by curious children! Contact lens solutions also contain salts of boron." "Doctor, how can one get poisoned from boric acid or other boron salts? Can it be administered homicidally? "Tarun, Boric acid- one of the most important toxic salts of boron- can certainly be administered homicidally especially as it is a colorless and odorless compound, and is quite commonly available. But no homicidal poisoning with boric acid has yet been reported perhaps because its lethal dose is rather high- about 20 g. As I told you in one of my earlier meetings, an ideal homicidal poison is one which is not only colorless, odorless and tasteless, but whose lethal dose is very small too. But this is not to say that homicidal cases may not have occurred. It is quite possible that cases of homicidal poisoning occurred, but because of poor investigation techniques, the poisoners remained scot free." "Has it been taken for suicidal purposes?" "Not to my knowledge, but certainly people have got poisoned when they mistook it for certain other salts. There are cases on record when boric acid crystals have been mistaken for other innocuous salts and ingested. It has frequently been mistaken for Epsom salt.... "Sorry to interrupt you doctor, but is Epsom salt the same as magnesium sulphate?" "You are right Tarun. Epsom is actually a place in England, very near London which is now famous for Derby- the world's best known horse race. Before the first Derby race here - in 1780- this place was better known as a spa. A spa as you know is a place where one goes to take bath in natural spring waters. Mineral springs were discovered here in 1618, which were quite rich in magnesium sulphate. This is how magnesium sulphate came to be known as Epsom salt. It has great medicinal value and is taken orally to treat constipation and heartburn. It is also prescribed as injection to prevent seizures, especially in preeclampsia, a dangerous condition seen in pregnant mothers." "Well, I think now I know a lot about boron. Coming to our own case, why do you think Dr. Harish administered Boron to Lata? Did he want to kill her with an exotic little known poison, so that no one could suspect him?" "It is a possibility but I do not think it must have happened, especially as Dr. Harish had no motive to kill Lata. Actually Borax has a reputation among quacks as an emmenagogue; it is supplied to induce criminal abortion...." "Well, you have introduced two new terms doctor. What are emmenagogues, and what is criminal abortion?" "Tarun, emmenagogue is a drug which increases the flow of menstrual blood. The term comes from the Greek roots emmena, menses, and agogein, to draw forth. Thus literally the term refers to any drug which "draws forth the menses". Interestingly the root agogein is seen in many other medical terms such as cholagogue, which refers to any drug which increases the secretion of bile (from Greek chole, bile). Many drugs have a reputation as emmenagogues, some of them being aloes, potassium permanganate, pennyroyal, caulophyllin and apiol. You would surely remember that last time we talked about cantharides in another context. Well, it is also an emmenagogue. Borax is also a strong emmenagogue. Criminal abortion is any abortion done against the law. The law requires that the doctor doing the abortion should have certain requisite qualifications and experience. Girls who become pregnant before marriage can not go to regular doctors for abortion for obvious fears of facing embarrassment and insult in society. So they chose an easy way out; they go to quacks who often do it in a hush-hush manner so that no one else may come to know about it. But they do not have the requisite qualifications, so abortions performed by them are obviously criminal in nature. If found out, they could be prosecuted by law. Since these doctors are not properly qualified, they do not know of standard and safe methods of abortion. They resort to centuries' old dangerous methods of abortion; methods which properly qualified doctors do not resort to. One of the methods employed by the quacks is to administer emmenagogues. The idea is that by promoting the flow of menstrual blood, they would somehow be able to "wash down" the young embryo lodged in the uterine wall. This method does work at times but is an extremely dangerous method. It is like trying to cut your nails by banging your fingers against a sharp knife." "I am getting the picture now. Lata was pregnant and she contacted Dr. Harish for a criminal abortion. Dr. Harish administered her borax as an emmenagogue. But it did not work; it caused her death instead." "You are very right Tarun. This is indeed what happened. The symptoms which Lata had were symptoms of pregnancy. Since she was unmarried, she did not want to make it known to her parents. She herself contacted Dr. Harish who was quite sure that he could do the job, but he killed her instead. Post-mortem findings in boron poisonings are not very specific. The mucosa or the lining of the stomach may be bright red and the blood may be cherry red in appearance. Characteristic rash as described earlier may be seen. I have seen all these findings in Lata's body. But I have not relied on autopsy findings alone. I have conducted blood tests on Lata's blood which are confirmatory. The levels of boron in her blood were important. Normally boron levels in the blood are minimal. A level of 50 mg/100 ml indicates poisoning, but I found boron levels exceeding 500 mg/100 mg, which surely is enough to cause death. The actual lethal dose of a boron salt is between 15-20 g for adults and from 3-5 g in infants. So I believe the second time Dr. Harish must have administered her a dose greater than about 20 g. He must have given her a lesser dose the first time, but when it did not do the trick, he administered a larger dose the next time, which killed her. Let us call the police and tell them how she died." "Oh sure we should. And thank you doctor for telling me about such an interesting poison. What are you going to tell me the next time?" "Tarun, next time I shall tell you about silver which as you shall see is a very important poison. "

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-12 EXAMINING THE SCENE OF CRIME Many people have asked me, what do we do at the scene of crime. In this column, I hope to explain a little bit about what we do at the scene of crime. Many times when a murder is reported in an outfield, the police officers prefer to take us to the scene where the dead body is lying. The idea is to give first hand information to the police regarding the murder. There are many vital pieces of evidence which can get lost once the body is moved. Consider the case of a man who has been shot down by a bullet and is lying on the field. Only a forensic pathologist can say by examining the dead body, as to which is the entrance wound and which one the exit wound. To a lay person, or a police officer, both the wounds of entrance and exit would appear the same. If forensic pathologist examines these wounds, he can reconstruct the line of fire, by joining these two points and say which direction the bullet came from. Once the body is moved, it would become impossible to reconstruct this 'line of fire' which can prove vital in later police investigations. Sometimes, when a dead body is moved from the actual place of murder to the mortuary, it might have to be dragged, dropped and dumped at various places in between. This produces artificial abrasions after death. These are technically known as 'post‑mortem abrasions' or simply as 'P.M. abrasions'. A doctor may wrongly think that these abrasions were produced during life and this may confuse the whole issue. So it is better to examine the body at the scent of crime itself. If you refer to diagram 1, you can have some idea about how we examine the body at the scene of crime. This persons was killed in a shoot‑out incident and it was very important to know which direction the bullets came from (Fig.1A) . You can see from the figure, the body is lying in the open, and an overcoat is lying spread‑out along with him. In such case, first thing we do is to photograph the body. The body has now to be removed. Before removing the body, we insert pegs around it and any material lying beside it, such as overcoat in this case( Fig.1B). the body and accompanying materials are then removed. However, before removal of the body, we note all the injuries on the body and determine how they were caused. This includes the determination of entry and exit wounds caused by firearms. Now a strong string is passed round the pegs (Fig.1C) . This gives an idea of the position of the body. The body is now removed to the mortuary and injuries are marked in great detail. First of all, the body is examined with the clothings on (Fig.1D). Any injuries on clothings are marked by circles. Now the clothings are removed and the injuries on the body are noted (Fig.1E) . The injuries on clothings and on the body must be co‑related. Finally we may return to the scent of crime and check once gain the position of the body. Since, now we have an idea of the entry and exit holes on the body, we can tell the police, which direction the bullets came from. Many times interesting clues can be recovered from the scene of crime, such as cigarette butts, hair, fibre fragments, blood stains, empty cartridges and so on. These clues also help us in several ways. But the main thing to be stressed here is to have a look at the body in a detailed manner and record its position most accurately. That single thing can work wonders for us several times.

Forensic Toxicology THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE APRIL 1998 ISSUE THE POISON SLEUTHS DEATH BY IODINE -Dr. Anil Aggrawal "Good morning doctor. Oh, my God, what are you doing today? You have the dead body of an old man. He has some brownish-yellow stains too around his mouth. What happened to him? Please tell me." "Good morning Tarun. The name of this 57 year old man is Ramlal. He was living alone in this house. He had no children, and his wife expired some time back. From all the accounts of neighbors, it appears he was having some depression. There were other reasons for depression too. He was a gambler and had taken a lot of money as loan from his friends. Some of them were pressing him to return his amount, and some were even threatening him with dire consequences, if he did not return the amount soon. The main among these was a person known as Mahto. He was seen entering Ramlal's house yesterday evening. Nobody knows what happened after that. Today morning when the maid came to Ramlal's house and knocked at his door, nobody opened the door. She got suspicious and called the neighbors. The neighbors broke the door open and found Ramlal dead." "Oh, I see. So definitely Mahto must have killed Ramlal." "Don't jump to conclusions Tarun. How do you know he didn't die a natural death?" "Well.....I thought that was the most natural conclusion to make. But come to think of it, Ramlal could well have died a natural death too." "But surely he didn't die a natural death. The reason is that a bottle was found in the room containing some dark liquid. The bottle was marked "poison" and it was half empty. As you can see Ramlal's face, the angles of his mouth are stained. It does appear he had taken this liquid." "Oh, yes, now I see. The area around his mouth is stained brownish yellow. So do you think Mahto gave him this poison?" "Well, this is what police is thinking. They have come to a startling conclusion. According to them, Mahto went to Ramlal's house to ask for money, but when Ramlal couldn't give him the money, Mahto wanted to get even with him, and gave him this poison. They have called Mahto, but he is denying this allegation completely. He says, that he did go to Ramlal's house and demanded his money, but when Ramlal expressed his inability to pay up, he left after giving him another warning." "It is quite possible that the police would torture Mahto to arrive at the truth." "Well, the possibility can not be ruled out. But I have examined Ramlal's dead body, and it appears to me Mahto is indeed innocent." "Oh, my God. How can you say about Mahto's innocence by just looking at Ramlal's dead body?" "Tarun. I have examined the contents of the empty bottle. It containes a strong tincture of iodine. It is the medicine which one applies to abrasions and wounds. It is used as an antiseptic. Iodine has a strong odor and a very bad taste. This poison can not be given to anyone as a poison...." "Do you think Ramlal never ingested the contents of the bottle, and died by some other means?" "No, Tarun, Ramlal did ingest the contents of the bottle. In fact, I have found signs on his dead body, which point to death by iodine. Not only this I have recovered some iodine from his stomach too. But the iodine was not given to him with homicidal intention. He ingested it himself with suicidal intentions. He probably did it so, because he was very depressed. He was not able to pay up his debts. Yesterday night Mahto visited him and demanded his money again. It dawned upon Ramlal, that he would not be able to stall his creditors for long, so after Mahto left, he consumed iodine to kill himself." "So iodine is such a strong poison, that it can kill? Well, can you tell me a little bit about iodine, so that I understand better how you detected iodine in his body?" "Tarun, Iodine was discovered by the French Chemist Bernard Courtois (1777-1838) in 1811. It might interest you to know that he was not interested in discovering a new element at all. He was actually in the buisiness of manufacturing potassium nitrate which was needed for making gunpowder. He used to get potassium nitrate from potassium carbonate (potash), which in turn he got from seaweed. As one of the steps to get the potassium carbonate, he had to heat the seaweed in acid. One day in 1811, he added too much acid and, on heating, obtained a beautiful violet vapor. On condensing the vapor, he produced dark lustrous crystals. This was in fact iodine. Courtois had in fact unwittingly discovered a new element! The element was given its name 3 years later by Sir Humphry Davy from the Greek iodes (like the violet). The name clearly refers to its unique color. It was originally prepared from the ashes of kelp and other seaweeds, just as Courtois had done. However at the present time, the major sources of iodine are natural and oil field brines, from which they are separated by a special process known as ion exchange chromatography. Kelps are very rich in iodine. I may tell you that although iodine in large amounts is poisonous to our body, it does need iodine in very small quantities. It is needed by the thyroid gland to make the hormone thyroxine. If someone's diet is deficient in iodine, his thyroid gland may enlarge. This disease is known as goitre. Kelps are so rich in iodine, that people who consume kelps don't suffer from goitre at all." "Oh, I see. How much iodine is required by our body daily?" "Tarun, the daily requirement of iodine is about 150 micrograms/day in adults, of which the thyroid gland takes up about 70 micrograms. Rest of the iodine is used for some other essential purposes. Some commercial preparations containing iodine are povidone-iodine and tincture of iodine. These are basically used as antiseptics and disinfectants. Ramlal probably kept the tincture of iodine in his general medical chest, as most of us do. Povidone-iodine is primarily used as a vaginal disinfectant. Tincture of iodine is usually applied on cuts and abrasions, to prevent them from getting infected. Tincture of iodine consists of 2% iodine, 2.4% sodium iodide, 47% ethyl alcohol and rest is water. Then there is the strong iodine tincture, which was found in Ramlal's house. It consists of 7% iodine, 5% potassium iodide, 83% ethyl alcohol, and water. It might interest you to know that the word tincture comes from the Latin tinctura (dyeing), which in turn comes from tingere (to dye). This Latin word also gives us the common English word tint. It is interesting that the word tincture is applied only to alcoholic solutions. Medicine and dyeing may appear to have no connection at all, but in fact there is an interesting link. In pharmacy alcoholic solutions are commonly called tinctures because many dyes will dissolve in alcohol but not in water. Tincture of iodine is reddish brown in color. In addition to tincture iodine, another preparation, Lugol's iodine is also available which consists of 5% iodine and 10% potassium iodide and the rest is water." "Oh, the information is interesting indeed. Can you tell me what symptoms does one experience if he is given iodine?" "I would like to tell you, it is not easy for someone to give iodine to others for homicidal purposes, because it has a characteristic color, odor and taste. Iodine vapors too have a characteristic odor and taste and are intensely irritating to the eyes, mucous membranes, and skin. In several countries, such as the US, the maximum allowable concentration is 0.1 ppm (1 mg/m3). Ppm, as you know stands for Parts Per Million. Even at this concentration, i.e. 0.1 ppm, some people may experience eye irritation. Higher concentrations may lead to excessive tearing, tightness in the chest, sore throat, headaches, irritation of the respiratory tract, and water-logging in the lungs, similar to that seen with chlorine gas exposure. Iodine is a powerful irritant and vesicant, which means it can cause skin eruptions. Symptoms may occur through inhalation, skin or eye contact, or ingestion. Iodine vapor may cause brown staining of the cornea. A 7% solution of iodine, which as you know now is the strong iodine tincture, is corrosive to the eye and the skin. Owing to its strong oxidizing action, iodine acts as an acid corrosive, precipitating cell proteins. Symptoms of iodine ingestion include unpleasant metallic taste, brownish-colored vomit, diarrhea, weak pulse, and retention of urine. There may be corrosion of skin and and mucus membrane with brownish yellow stains. Finally there may be delirium, stupor, and collapse. Changes in the body involve staining of the walls of food pipe and of stomach walls and rapid development of pneumonia-like symptoms." "Doctor, how much iodine is sufficient to kill a person?" "Tarun, about 3-4 g of elemental iodine or 30-250 mL of strong ticture can kill a person. Death usually occurs in the first 48 hours. However death can occur as early as about ½ hour after ingestion to as late as 52 days." "Oh, I see. Well, in the current case how can you prove to the court that Ramlal did die of iodine poisoning?" "As I told you, I found Iodine in his stomach. Iodine can be detected in stomach by some deceptively simple tests. If the stomach contents contains iodine, it may be made to sublime, by taking the stomach contents in a beaker and warming it gently. The purplish iodine vapours may be made to condense on a watch glass placed on the top of the beaker. Another test involves adding 1 ml of starch solution to 10 ml of stomach contents. A blue-black colour will develop immediately due to the formation of starch iodide. If death has occurred after 2-3 hours, some iodine may have reached urine too. To detect iodine in the urine, we add 5 ml of chloroform and a few drops of nitric acid to 10 ml of urine and allow to stand for 3 minutes. A pinkish violet chloroform layer forms, which confirms the presence of iodine in the urine. I have done all these three tests on Ramlal's body and have found iodine in stomach contents as well as in the urine." "You said you found some signs on Ramlal's body also which pointed towards iodine poisoning. What are those signs?" "Tarun, the main sign is the brownish or yellowish stains of skin, which you can see on Ramlal's body. Furthermore all internal organs such as liver and spleen are found engorged with blood. Sometimes there is a characteristic odor too from the body, but this is very rarely perceptible. Now since we have proved that this is a case of death due to iodine, we can easily prove that Mahto couldn't have given this solution to Ramlal. Come, let us tell the police about it, so they can release Mahto." "Oh, how very clever of you doctor. This was a most interesting discussion. It is doubtful if Mahto could have been proved innocent without your excellent detective work. Tell me what are you going to tell me the next time?" "Tarun, next time, I would tell you about a very interesting poison- Barium "

Reviewers' Board: Best Toxicology Books A journal affiliated to Anil Aggrawal's Forensic Toxicology Page V.V.Pillay, MD, DCL Professor, Dept. of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology Chief, Poison Control & DNA Typing Units, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences & Research, Cochin 682026 South India E-mail: toxicology@medical.amrita.edu Professor V.V.Pillay has been in the vanguard of the movement among medical professionals in India to develop the neglected field of Toxicology. He has published extensively in both the scientific and lay press on matters relating to Toxicology, as well as his chosen discipline - Forensic Medicine. Dr.Pillay has authored 5 books on Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, and has received an award for one of them (Modern Medical Toxicology), generally considered to be a trend setter among books on the subject in India. He has reviewed several books on Toxicology for the Internet Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology. Dr.Pillay received a scroll of honour in appreciation of work done in the field of Toxicology from the Medicolegal Society, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. He is instrumental in establishing a state-of-the-art Poison Control Center at the institute where he is currently employed, which is among the few such Centers in India recognized by the World Health Organization. Among his most sought-after publications is a 700 page reference work on Toxicology. Dr. Pillay has recently started a professional organization exclusively dedicated to toxicology - The Indian Society of Toxicology, which has drawn membership of professionals and researchers from all over the country and abroad. The Society brings out a peer reviewed journal biannually (Journal of Indian Society of Toxicology). Professor Pillay is also an Executive Editor in Anil Aggrawal's Internet Journal of Book Reviews.

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