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ISSN: 0972-8066 (CD version) ISSN: 0972-8074 (Online version) NLM Unique ID: 100960452 Anil Aggrawal's Internet Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology ( Peer-reviewed electronic journal for Forensic professionals ) (Published biannually on the 1st January and 1st July every year) [Anil Aggrawal's Internet Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology is Indexed / Listed with EMBASE / the Exerpta Medica database, NCJRS (National Criminal Justice Reference Service), Chemical Abstracts Service (A division of the American Chemical Society), Ulrich's Periodicals Directory, MedWebPlus (A service of Flexis, Inc., California), Genamics JournalSeek, getCITED, National Library of Medicine's LocatorPlus, Scopus™ (A service of Elsevier B.V., Amsterdam), Leids Universitair Medisch Centrum, Electronic Journal Miner, EBSCO, Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), Electronic Journals Library (maintained by the University Library of Regensburg), Index Copernicus, Galter Health Sciences Library, Chicago, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), HINARI and Clarivate Analytics' Emerging Sources Citation Index.] Mentioned in the British Medical Journal [BMJ Volume 324 9 February 2002, page 372 Column - Netlines by Harry Brown, general practitioner, Leeds DrHarry@dial.pipex.com 1st entry in the column mentions this journal A t that time, the journal was hosted at a different URL, which is mentioned in the column. 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HOWEVER THE ARTICLES AND OTHER MATERIALS MAY NOT BE REPOSTED ON THE NET OR REPRINTED FOR COMMERCIAL GAIN WITHOUT THE PERMISSION OF THE EDITORIAL BOARD. Scope of the Journal Anil Aggrawal's Internet Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology is published online twice a year. It is the world's first online journal of forensic medicine and toxicology. Started by Professor Anil Aggrawal of Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi, on 25 February 2000, it publishes original on forensic medicine, toxicology, medical law, science and the law and allied subjects such as criminology, police science, deviant behavior, forensic psychiatry and psychology. Any subject that has a forensic interest e.g., forensic astronomy, forensic economics, forensic geoscience, forensic gemology, forensic herpetology, forensic hypnosis, forensic limnology, forensic linguistics, forensic mathematics and statistics, forensic metallurgy, forensic microbiology, forensic microscopy, forensic nursing, forensic palynology, forensic pharmacy, forensic phonetics, forensic social work, jurimetrics, nanoforensics, teleforensics, veterinary forensics, wildlife forensics etc., as well as papers related to medicolegal aspects of various medical disciplines, such as pediatrics, surgery, ENT, ophthalmology etc. are also published. The journal has regular undergraduate and postgraduate sections, book reviews, interviews with famous forensic professionals, poster sessions, announcements of conferences etc. All back issues are archived for easy access and are available to all. The journal has an impressive editorial board comprising of at least one specialist from every single continent of the world. About 10,000 visitors visit and read the journal daily from all parts of the world. The journal is indexed/listed with several major abstracting services such as Chemical Abstracts Service, EMBASE, Index Copernicus, SCOPUS, and Web of Science [Clarivate (formerly Thomson Reuters)]. For more information, please visit following link (Wikipedia). Submit Here Call for Reviewers Interested in becoming a reviewer for this journal? Check Details Anil Aggrawal's Internet Journal Of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology (Access the pages by clicking on them.) Main Page (current Issues & Archives) Paper/Thesis Submission Guidelines Call for Reviewers Aims & Objectives Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Undergraduate Section Postgraduate Section History of the Journal Contributing Partners Be our Sponsor Editorial Board Journal CD Awards Credits Cumulative Index (Sorted by Publishers) of Reviews of Forensic gadgets/toys/other tidbits Models related to Forensics/Toxicology Electronic books related to Forensics/Toxicology Calenders related to Forensics/Toxicology Software/Multimedia/Videotape Reviews Books on CD/Audio books, CDs and tapes Cumulative Index of Editorials Theses/Dissertations Online Courses Reviews with Quizzes Animated Book Reviews Featured Reviews Interviews with Prominent Writers/Authors/Forensic Professionals/ Toxicologists Cumulative index of Book Reviews Sorted by Publishers Subjects (General) Subjects (Technical) The Punjab Corneal Grafting Act, 1963 Leading papers Aggrawal A., Busuttil A. Age Estimation in the living. The Police Surgeon (Journal of The Association of Police Surgeons). No. 38, Jan 1991, Pp 33-36. Aggrawal A. References to the paraphilias and sexual crimes in the Bible. J Forensic Leg Med. 2009 Apr;16(3):109-14. [Pubmed ] Aggrawal A. Estimation of age in the living: in matters civil and criminal. J Anat. 2009 May 11. [Pubmed ] Aggrawal A. A new classification of necrophilia. J Forensic Leg Med. 2009 Aug;16(6):316-20. [Pubmed ] Aggrawal A. A new classification of zoophilia. J Forensic Leg Med. 2011 Feb;18(2):73-8. [Pubmed] Some selected chapters in books and encyclopedias Aggrawal A. (2003) Age Estimation in the Living. In: Payne-James JJ, Busuttil A, Smock W (Eds.) Forensic Medicine: Clinical and Pathological Aspects, Pp. 391-408. Greenwich Medical Media, San Francisco & London Aggrawal A. (2005) Allergies. In: Payne-James JJ, Byard RW, Corey TS, Henderson C (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Forensic and Legal Medicine, Vol. 1, Pp. 58-68. Elsevier Academic Press, London Aggrawal A. (2005) Drug Induced Injury, Accidental and Iatrogenic. In: Payne-James JJ, Byard RW, Corey TS, Henderson C (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Forensic and Legal Medicine, Vol. 2, Pp. 230-238. Elsevier Academic Press, London Aggrawal A. (2005) Drug Prescribed: Product Liability. In: Payne-James JJ, Byard RW, Corey TS, Henderson C (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Forensic and Legal Medicine, Vol. 2, Pp. 243-252. Elsevier Academic Press, London Aggrawal A. (2005) History of Toxicology. In: Payne-James JJ, Byard RW, Corey TS, Henderson C (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Forensic and Legal Medicine, Vol. 2, Pp. 525-538. Elsevier Academic Press, London Aggrawal A. (2005) Internet: Toxicology. In: Payne-James JJ, Byard RW, Corey TS, Henderson C (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Forensic and Legal Medicine, Vol. 3, Pp. 171-181. Elsevier Academic Press, London Aggrawal A. (2005) Mass Murder. In: Payne-James JJ, Byard RW, Corey TS, Henderson C (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Forensic and Legal Medicine, Vol. 3, Pp. 216-223. Elsevier Academic Press, London Aggrawal A. (2005) Mass Poisonings. In: Payne-James JJ, Byard RW, Corey TS, Henderson C (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Forensic and Legal Medicine, Vol. 3, Pp. 223-229. Elsevier Academic Press, London Aggrawal A. (2005) Refugee Medicine. In: Payne-James JJ, Byard RW, Corey TS, Henderson C (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Forensic and Legal Medicine, Vol. 3, Pp. 514-525. Elsevier Academic Press, London Aggrawal A. (2005) Terrorism: Medicolegal Aspects. In: Payne-James JJ, Byard RW, Corey TS, Henderson C (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Forensic and Legal Medicine, Vol. 4, Pp. 269-276. Elsevier Academic Press, London Aggrawal A. (2005) Terrorism: Nuclear and Biological. In: Payne-James JJ, Byard RW, Corey TS, Henderson C (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Forensic and Legal Medicine, Vol. 4, Pp. 277-289. Elsevier Academic Press, London Aggrawal A. Tsokos M (2005) Terrorism: Suicide Bombing, Investigation. In: Payne-James JJ, Byard RW, Corey TS, Henderson C (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Forensic and Legal Medicine, Vol. 4, Pp. 289-296. Elsevier Academic Press, London Aggrawal A. (2006) Agrochemical poisoning. In: Tsokos M (Ed.) Forensic pathology reviews vol 4. Humana Press, New Jersey, chapter 10, Pp 261-327. Aggrawal A. (2007) Bride Capture. In: David S. Clark (Ed.) Encyclopedia Of Law And Society: American And Global Perspectives. SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks, London. Pp. 134-35 (vol. 1). Aggrawal A. (2007) Discrimination, Sociology of. In: David S. Clark (Ed.) Encyclopedia Of Law And Society: American And Global Perspectives. SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks, London. Pp. 418-20 (vol. 1). Aggrawal A. (2007) Dowry Customs. In: David S. Clark (Ed.) Encyclopedia Of Law And Society: American And Global Perspectives. SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks, London. Pp. 435-7 (vol. 1). Aggrawal A. (2007) Homicide. In: David S. Clark (Ed.) Encyclopedia Of Law And Society: American And Global Perspectives. SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks, London. Pp. 709-11 (vol. 2). Aggrawal A. (2007) Incest. In: David S. Clark (Ed.) Encyclopedia Of Law And Society: American And Global Perspectives. SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks, London. Pp. 730-2 (vol. 2). Aggrawal A. (2011) Sexual Deviant Behavior and Crimes. In: Lynch, VA, Duval, JB (Eds.) Forensic Nursing Science, 2nd ed, ch 41,Pp. 512-20. Elsevier Mosby, Missouri. Aggrawal A., Sardana K (2014) Medicolegal aspects of Lasers in Dermatological practice. In: Sardana K, Garg VK (Eds.) LASERS in Dermatological practice, ch 16,Pp. 441-54. Jaypee, New Delhi. "I play 90 hours a week. Many people call it work."

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Forensic Toxicology THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE AUGUST 1999 ISSUE THE POISON SLEUTHS DEATH BY DIGITALIS -Dr. Anil Aggrawal "Good morning doctor. Oh, my God, what are you doing today? You have the dead body of a young man today. What happened to him? Please tell me." "Good morning Tarun. The name of this young man is Surendra, and he died early this morning in the hospital. He was a business partner of Lokesh. They were in the business of assembling computers and distributing them to the customers. Lokesh has done an assorted medley of jobs before coming to this business, not the least significant of which was his brief stint as a pharmacist. He in fact is a qualified pharmacist and had tried his hand at that job in the beginning. But when he couldn't succeed in that job, he changed to other professions, changing them frequently, until finally he settled in the business of computers about a year back. It is said that his company Goodwin Computers Ltd was doing a business of several lakhs." "Do all these facts have a bearing on Surendra's death?" "I am coming to that. Lately Goodwin Computers Ltd was running in a loss. Surendra found out that Lokesh was illegally siphoning off a major chunk of money to his own personal company Lokesh Computers Ltd, which he had floated simultaneously only about a couple of months back. Surendra realized that very soon, he would siphon off all the money from their joint company to his own personal company. So he was clamouring for a dissolution of their joint company and to give him his due share. It is estimated that Goodwin Computers Ltd was worth about 50 to 60 Lakhs, so obviously Surendra's share was about 30 Lakhs. Lokesh always denied that he was illegally siphoning off money as alleged by Surendra. Ultimately to sign the deal, Lokesh agreed to come over to Surendra's house yesterday evening. After the initial pleasantries, Surendra offered Lokesh drinks which he readily agreed to. They were sitting in the drawing room. After the first drink, Surendra went inside to the bedroom to phone a nearby restaurant for some food. When he returned he found that Lokesh had prepared the second drink for both of them. They were to have dinner after that, after which Surendra and Lokesh would sign the deal to dissolve the company and share the proceeds. Surendra was himself trained in law, and had already prepared the deal. After Surendra finished his second drink, Lokesh got a call on his mobile and he expressed his desire to go to his home for some little work. He said that he would be back within 15 minutes. Just after Lokesh left, Surendra felt a nauseating feeling; in fact he vomited once or twice. But he thought that it was probably because of alcohol. But soon he complained of diarrhoea, fatigue and marked muscular weakness. He knew something was wrong with him, so he phoned his doctor. His doctor advised him immediate hospitalization. In the hospital, he became drowsy and restless. He complained of several strange visual symptoms. He had blurred vision and complained of seeing big dark circles. He also said that things were appearing yellowish to him. The symptoms rather confused the doctors. They were still investigating his case, when today morning Surendra suddenly expired. Surendra's parents have alleged that he has been poisoned and that is why the police has handed over his body to me for post-mortem. My job of course is to find out if indeed he has been poisoned." "What do you make out of this case doctor? Is it really a case of poisoning?" "Tarun, I have made a detailed study of Surendra's symptoms. And again and again my mind is coming back to one poison only - Digitalis. Indeed his characteristic visual symptoms are leading me to that. Of course I will have to do the detailed autopsy to find out if indeed it was digitalis which killed him." "Digitalis! Never heard of it being used as a poison. What is it anyway?" "Tarun, Digitalis is a drug which is given usually to heart patients. And regarding its use as a poison, it has been used several times before for killing people. The effects of this drug are best known to doctors. Indeed one of the first murderers to use digitalis to eliminate his victims was a doctor." "Oh, looks like we are again on to one of your exciting stories. Please tell me about digitalis from the beginning doctor." "Tarun, Digitalis comes from a plant called Foxglove. Its botanical name is Digitalis purpurea, and it has beautiful bell-shaped purple flowers. Figure 1: Foxglove plant from which comes the drug digitalis. Note the characteristic bell shaped flowers hanging like bells In fact the species name purpurea is derived from the purple color of its flowers. The term foxglove actually is a corruption of "folks-glove", which means "fairies glove". The name comes from the finger like appearance of its flowers. Because of the same appearance, it is called fingerhut in German, which literally means "finger hat" or "thimble". The botanical name digitalis is also derived in a similar fashion. In Latin digitus actually means a finger or toe. You may be interested to know that since early man counted on his "fingers", even the numerals 0-9 came to be known as digits, and from this comes our modern word "digital calculator". Isn't it interesting that as widely different terms as digitalis and digital calculator have similar origins?" "It surely is. Since when is this plant known to mankind?" "Tarun, the plant foxglove has been known to man since antiquity and has been used by herb doctors and wise old women (The proverbial "Dadi Ma")(Note to Non-Hindi Readers: Dadi Ma is a word of affection used widely in India for wise, loving grandmother) in multifarious concoctions. But it was used systematically for the first time by a young English doctor William Withering (1741-1799) in 1776. Figure 2: William Withering (1741-1799) seated in his chair. Note the Foxglove plant with the characteristic bell shaped flowers in his hand He received his M.D. Degree from the University of Edinburgh in 1766, and in 1775 came to practice in Birmingham General Hospital. In those days, physicians usually picked their own drugs from the plants, and thus botany was a subject included in medical curriculum. Oddly in his studies at Edinburgh the one subject Withering loathed was botany! But one of his first patients, Miss Helena Cooke, a talented flower painter, changed his loathing into love. She encouraged the young doctor to collect plants for her. Later their love grew, and Withering married Miss Cooke! After marriage he moved to Birmingham to take up his job at Birmingham General Hospital. It may interest you to know that Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of the great biologist, Charles Darwin had actually recommended Withering for this position. His friends included such great luminaries as Joseph Priestley, the chemist and James Watt." "That's interesting. How did Withering come to know of foxglove?" "At Birmingham, one of Withering's Hospital associates named John Ash informed Withering that one Dr. Cawley, principal of Brasenose College of Oxford University, was cured of a heart disease with a secret formula used by an old woman of Shropshire. She was a lady called Mrs. Hutton, and used a decoction containing some 20 herbs. One of these 20 herbs was foxglove, and Withering quickly realized that out of all the 20 herbs, it was the foxglove which was doing the trick. Figure 3: William Withering paying Mrs. Hutton with Gold coins for the secret of Foxglove. Note the Foxglove plants with the characteristic bell shaped flowers in the background Legend has it that Withering paid Mrs. Hutton with several Gold coins for the secret of foxglove which Mrs. Hutton gave him." "Oh, this is most interesting. So how does digitalis help the patient in the heart disease. And how come, a drug which is so useful in heart disease can act as a poison?" "Tarun, all medicines are potentially poisons. Indeed the great Swiss physician and Chemist, Paracelsus (1495-1541) said that all substances are poisons. There is none, which is not. He said that the right dose differentiates a poison and a remedy. You have already seen in my earlier discussions how innocuous looking substances as chilli powder (see Science Reporter November 1997) and common salt (see Science Reporter March 1998) have been used to kill people. You asked how digitalis helps the patient in heart disease. Well, it increases the force of contraction of the heart. In technical language we say that digitalis has a positive inotropic effect on the heart. But in large doses digitalis can be fatal." "Doctor, how much digitalis is fatal?" "Tarun, first of all, I must tell you that digitalis is the name given to the dried leaf of the plant Digitalis purpurea. It contains two principal drugs digoxin and digitoxin. Digitoxin is more toxic than digoxin. While the fatal dose of digoxin varies from 5 to 25 mg, the fatal dose of digitoxin is just 3-5 mg. For this reason, digitoxin is not used by doctors in the treatment of heart disease, because if they used this drug, there would be more fatal accidents, than with digoxin. I must tell you that digoxin is commonly available in the market under the names of Cardioxin, Digitran-250, Digox, Digoxin and Lanoxin. Different drug companies market the same chemical compound, i.e. digoxin under different commercial names. This tablet is available as 0.25 mg tablets. So about 20-100 tablets would be fatal. A patient of heart disease would require about 3-6 tablets daily." "How are you going to determine whether Surendra indeed died of digoxin poisoning?" "Tarun, normally there should be no digoxin in the blood. But even if we presume, Surendra was taking digitalis for some heart ailment, his blood should show very low quantities of digoxin. These low levels are called the therapeutic levels. The therapeutic levels of digoxin in the blood of a patient taking digoxin as a remedy should be around 0.5 to 2.5 nanograms per ml (one nanogram is 10-9 of a gram). Toxic levels are about 3.0 ng/ml. And levels of 10-30 ng/ml are associated with severe poisoning. I have estimated the levels of digoxin in the blood of Surendra, and I have found levels of 35.6 ng/ml. There is indeed no doubt that Surendra had been given digitalis by Lokesh. Lokesh definitely wanted to eliminate Surendra, so he could not ask for his due share in their joint business. In fact, when Surendra went inside to order for food on phone, Lokesh quickly prepared his drink, and laced it with about 30 to 35 tablets of digoxin, which he had already brought with him. Surendra was already a little tipsy because of the first peg of alcohol which he had taken, so he couldn't notice the slight change in taste that must have been induced by the addition of these tablets. I am almost sure this is how Lokesh has killed Surendra. In fact, I have already instructed the police to search Lokesh's house thoroughly. Oh, here comes a policeman with something in his hand which he has found from Lokesh's house. Lo and behold, these are the strips of digoxin tablets. Lokesh would have tough time explaining to the police and the court what these digoxin tablets were doing in his home, especially when he is not suffering from any heart disease." "That was very clever of you doctor. Without your clever deduction - especially your noticing the peculiar visual symptoms of Surendra at the time of his death- everybody would have thought Surendra died of some mysterious natural disease. 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- Yellow Kaner. "

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-8 WHEN THE BODY TURNS INTO WAX ! Saroj, 16, and Mahendra, 12 were brother and sister. On June 8, 1987, they went to play as usual in the garden, but they never returned. Saroj was a beautiful girl and her parents were always quite reserved in allowing her out alone. On that day however, she was able to cajole her parents into allowing her to go out with her brother. A complaint with the police did not result in any benefit either. The police asked various questions, including about the people the parents suspected. But the family had no enemies whatsoever. As time passed, it became clear that Saroj and Mahendra were kidnapped by some gang, presumably with the purpose of having intercourse with Saroj. There was a gang in town which had once kidnapped a young 19 year old girl, kept her in detention for as many as three months, during which she was forced into intercourse day and night. When the gang members were tired of sex, they would all sit together in a circle and ask her to perform naked dances in the center. After meting out this inhuman treatment to her for three months, they finally did away with her. Her body was found three and a half months later, quite putrefied in a forest. Only one member of the gang could be arrested and from him, the whole story was revealed. The body bore several stab marks, which showed that the modus operandi of the gang was to kill by stabbing. Lakhiram and Revati, the parents of Saroj and Mahendra shivered at this thought. They kept searching for their children, but without any success. On January 15, 1988, one highly putrefied body was found in a forest about 50 miles away from the village of Lakhiram and Revati. Most of the body had been eaten away by animals and maggots were crawling on what remained of the corpse. It was impossible to identify the dead person from the remains. I was called by the police inspector at the place. I made some preliminary examination of the bone and told the police that the bones belonged to a male between 11 and 13 years of age. Moreover, the person, whoever he was, had suffered osteomyelitis (an infection of the bone) in his right leg, about two year before. This description fitted Mahendra exactly. Lakhiram and Revati were immediately contacted and they admitted that Mahendra had suffered from a terrible weeping sore about two and a half years back and also that the sore had healed with great difficulty after about six months of treatment. This, of course, is not the main part of the story. This only established that the victim was Mahendra. But I could not say who had killed him or how had he been killed. This was vital for the police to know. One thing however became clear. If Mahendra had been killed, it was quite possible that his sister Saroj had also been killed and was disposed off in a nearby area itself. A police party launched a massive search for the body of Saroj. They were expecting her body, too, to be in the same state of deterioration; so everyone's stomach was turning topsy-turvy. But lo and behold! Two days later a constable of the search party accidentally stumbled upon a quite well-preserved body of a teenaged girl on the shores of a nearby pond. The body was naked and so well preserved that everybody could at once recognize it was Saroj. When the search party touched the body, it felt as it was like soft wax. Everyone was nonplussed. What had happened to Saroj? I was called immediately. When I arrived there and looked at the body, I realized at once that I was dealing with an adipocere. I rubbed some of the body's material between my thumb and index finger. It gave me a cheesy feeling. I smelt the material. The smell was somewhat similar to that of old cheese. Here then was the body of Saroj, turned into adipocere and intuitively I knew that now I could tell a lot of things to the police regarding the crime. Let us introduce a red herring into the story and first see what an adipocere is. The word adipocere comes from two Latin words, adeps meaning fat and sera meaning wax. It is also known by several other names such as Grave Wax, Mortuary Fat , or Saponified Tissue . This is a situation when the body fat turns into wax under certain special conditions. When a person is killed and thrown away in a forest, his body will normally putrefy. But if there is water in the vicinity or the ground on which the body is thrown is wet and the temperature is quite high then the conditions are just right for the body fats to turn into wax. A very complex chemical reaction takes place for this to happen. For the more scientifically-minded readers, the unsaturated body fats are first saturated to firmer fats and this firmer fat is then split into fatty acids and glycerol. Glycerol usually drains away. The remaining fatty acids (mainly saturated fatty acids such as palmatic acid, stearic acid, hydroxystearic acid and oleic acid) may then combine with body calcium to form soaps and waxes. Adipocere is thus essentially composed of saturated fatty acids such as palmatic acid, stearic acid, hydroxystearic acid, oleic acid and their calcium salts. Adipocere forms mainly at those parts of the body where there is a lot of accumulation of body fat. Such areas are cheeks, buttocks, breasts and thighs. Since Saroj's body had been thrown near a pond, the conditions were just right for her body to be turned into adipocere. Once a body turns into adipocere, it does not undergo normal decomposition, and remains as such. It gives the forensic expert a lot of benefits. For one thing, the features of the person remain discernible. Secondly, since the body is more or less preserved, one can say how the person died. Adipocere is a yellowish white, greasy, wax like substance with a rancid smell. It is lighter than water. If we cut out some adipocere from the body of such a person, and put it in water, we find that it will float. It cuts easily and burns with a faint yellow flame giving offensive odor. Fresh adipocere is soft and moist, but old samples are dry and brittle. Adipocere takes about 3 months to form, so we can form a idea when the person was done to death. The body of Saroj was found on January 15, 1988. So, at a rough guess, she must have been killed on or around October 15, 1987. She had been kidnapped on June 8, 1987. So it appeared that she had been kept in captivity for about 4 months. This pointed to her having been used for sexual purposes. Since her body was well preserved, I could examine her genitals, which too had been converted into adipocere. Her hymen, the soft membrane which cover the vagina, was completely mutilated indicating that she had indeed been used for sexual intercourse. Her left breast and both buttocks showed very clear stab wounds. These stab wounds would normally have been obliterated if normal putrefaction had set in. But since her body had been converted into the wax-like adipocere, the stab marks were clearly visible. Her kidnapping and confinement, her use as an object of sexual intercourse and the method of her killing, all pointed to the dreaded Devi gang which had earlier done the same deed. Devi gang had big political connections and until and unless the police had solid clues to back them, they could not dare to touch the gang. But now since I had provided them with all vital clues, they went fully armed to nab the Devi Gang and made tough inquires. Sure enough, very soon, the gang cracked up and confessed to the abduction, sexual molestation and killing of Saroj. They had to finally kill Saroj because she had become pregnant. When the case went to court, the court admitted my medical evidence and had no difficulty in convicting the members of Devi gang. In this particular case, my knowledge of science helped me to unravel crime. A non-specialist would have been quite nonplussed to see the waxy body of Saroj, but I knew it was adipocere. To summarize, this adipocere formation helped me to (i) establish her identity (ii) establish the cause of her death and (iii) indicate the time of her death. These facts together enabled me to weave a coherent story which ultimately helped in catching the culprits.

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Forensic Toxicology THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE JULY 1998 ISSUE THE POISON SLEUTHS DEATH BY DNOC -Dr. Anil Aggrawal "Good morning doctor. Oh, my God, what are you doing today? You have the dead body of a young girl today. What happened to her? Please tell me." "Good morning Tarun. The name of this young girl is Seema, and she died this morning in the hospital. Yesterday night she had some severe problem for which her neighbors had taken her to a hospital, but there she died soon after. Well, let me tell you everything from the beginning. She is 24 years old and used to live alone. She is originally from UP, where her parents and family is still residing. She was doing a job in Delhi as a typist, and so was living here for about 2 years. She apparently had a love-affair with one of her colleagues Ramesh. They had a good relation for quite some time, and there were rumours that they were even going to marry." "Oh, I see. But how did she die?" "About a month back, Ramesh's parents fixed his marriage somewhere else, to which Ramesh also did not object much, which in effect meant, that he had tacitly consented for the marriage. When Seema came to know about it, she became mad, and there was a verbal duel between the two. Quite coincidentally, this happened in their office, and everyone saw them fighting them in this manner. That's how we know about this incident." "What was she saying during the verbal duel?" "The colleagues who were present there told the police, that the verbal duel suddenly started and went on for about 15 minutes, till their colleagues intervened. She was saying that Ramesh had shown utter meanness and had deserted her because of her looks. As you can see, she is quite fat. I have measured her height and weight. She is 157 cm in height and her weight is 76 Kg, which as you can see is quite much for her height. Apparently there were sexual relations between the two also, and she was heard saying that Ramesh used their friendship for his advantage, and is now deserting her. He never intended to marry her in the first place." "Is this accusation correct?" "Well, nobody knows for sure. But from what I hear from the office colleagues, Seema was not a very attractive girl, and no male was much interested in her, except for official relations. If Ramesh started nurturing relations with her, it's quite possible, that he was looking for some free fun. Once he had his fun, he decided to marry elsewhere." "Are you hinting that he killed Seema?" "No. Not me. I do not say anything before I have scientifically confirmed my facts. The sequence of events was this. Ramesh had visited her flat last night. Apparently the meeting was aimed at reconciliation. Ramesh wanted to explain Seema the circumstances under which he was marrying elsewhere. The fact of his visit last night is confirmed by Seema's neighbors. Even Ramesh himself has agreed to this fact. Apparently, he stayed there for about 15 minutes and then left. Sometime after he left, Seema knocked at a neighbor's door and told her she was not feeling well. She was sweating profusely, had very high fever, complained of intense thirst, and was in great distress. The neighbors immediately realized that something was terribly wrong with her. They took her to the nearby hospital. Before the doctors could ask her anything, she fell into a coma, from which she never recovered. She died after 6 hours." "Oh, I see. So how did she die? "I will tell you about that a little later, when I tell you about my scientific deductions. But before that, it would be very necessary for you to know, why this case has been brought to me. Her parents were immediately informed by the neighbors and they have arrived this morning. After hearing everything, they have put a very damning allegation on Ramesh. They say that last night during his visit, Ramesh must have given her something to eat because of which these symptoms started. The fact that the symptoms started just after Ramesh left has given credence to this allegation. The police also believes this theory. They think that Ramesh wanted to get rid of Seema, otherwise she could have made life hard for him. She could even have kept troubling him after marriage, and could even infuse all kinds of doubts in the mind of his future wife, so the best course for Ramesh was to put an end to her life." "What does Ramesh have to say in this regard?" "The police has enquired Ramesh, and he says that he did visit Seema to explain her his position. The marriage was being held at the instance of his parents, and he could not interfere in that. But Seema was not ready to listen to him. She was very depressed. After about 15 minutes of unsuccessful attempts at reconciliation, he left." "What do the doctors at the hospital say about the cause of her death?" "The doctors did not have much time to examine her. I have talked to the doctors there. They feel it could be a case of salicylate poisoning or perhaps even thyrotoxicosis." "I don't really understand these two terms. Please explain them to me." "Tarun, acetylsalicylic acid is used in modern medicine for the relief of pain. Ordinary dispirin, which is available in the market for pain relief contains 350 mg of acetylsalicylic acid. If too many tablets are ingested, one can get salicylate poisoning. The toxic dose of acetylsalicylic acid is about 200-300 mg/kg. Thus you can plainly see that for Seema who was 76 kg, the toxic dose is about 65 tablets. People may ingest pain killers for committing suicide. This practice although very common in foreign countries, is not so common in our country, mainly because people are not aware of this fact. But Seema was an educated girl, and she might be well aware of this fact. She was depressed because of recent developments and she might have ingested these tablets after Ramesh left. Ramesh obviously could not give her so many tablets to eat, and even if he had given her, she would not have eaten them. So if this case does turn out to be that of salicylate poisoning, it is quite probable that Ramesh is indeed speaking the truth, and had nothing to do with her death." "Why did the doctors at the hospital think in the first place that she was having salicylate poisoning?" "Because of her symptoms. The symptoms of high fever, thirst and profuse sweating are seen in salicylate poisoning. It might surprise you to know, that although acetylsalicylic acid is normally used for the control of high temperature, during overdose, it produces high fever itself. The doctors also noted difficulty in respiration and very rapid heart rate. Before she went into coma, she also had convulsions. These features are quite typical of salicylate poisoning. The same features are also seen in thyrotoxicosis, a disorder of the thyroid gland, in which the thyroid starts secreting excessive amounts of thyroxine. That is why the doctors gave this as the second diagnosis." "Oh, so now we have all the views. Now tell me what your investigation reveals." "Tarun, we can straightaway rule out thyrotoxicosis. In this disorder, the person is excessively lean and as you can see, Seema is very much overweight. Acetylsalicylic acid poisoning seems a more likely choice. But when I examined her hands, I found some yellow stains on them. This, and certain other findings, which I shall explain shortly, immediately alerted me in the direction of another poison- a very rare one, but one which causes exactly the symptoms exhibited by Seema" "What is that poison doctor? Please tell me. I am getting curious." "Tarun it is known as DiNitroOrthoCresol or DNOC for short." "DNOC? Never heard of this poison. Please tell me something more about this poison." "Tarun, DNOC belongs to a family of compounds known as dinitrophenols (DNP). These compounds are highly toxic and can rapidly produce death. Toxic effects often appear at blood concentrations greater than 30 mg/l while concentrations greater than 60 mg/l are associated with severe toxicity. Dinitrophenols are mainly used as pesticides. Dinitro-ortho-cresol (DNOC) and Dinitrophenol are the two main phenolic pesticides. These substances are used in agriculture chiefly as selective weed killers for cereal crops and for the destruction of potato haulm. In dilute solution they may be used as an insecticidal winter wash for fruit trees. The principal risk of poisoning is in the agricultural use of concentrated solutions for spraying crops. Absorption occurs by inhalation and ingestion and also through the skin; excretion is extremely slow so the poison tends to accumulate in the body. The risk of absorption is much greater during hot weather. Those exposed to these chemicals (such as farmers when spraying these chemicals) are generally recommended to wear respirators to avoid inhaling them. They are also subjected to periodical examination to determine the concentration of these compounds in the blood, which should not exceed 20 micrograms per gram. Dinitrophenolic compounds, especially DNOC stimulate the human metabolism very strongly. In fact DNOC can increase the tissue metabolism by 1200%! The effects of dinitrophenol in stimulating metabolism have been known since 1885, and at one time DNOC was even used in the treatment of obesity and misused for "slimming". "I couldn't understand that last point very well doctor." "Tarun, any compound which stimulates metabolism that greatly basically burns up your energy stores in the body. The main energy store in the body is the fat. If it is burnt, the person will get slim. All exercises are aimed at this only- to burn as much fat as possible. But exercise is time consuming, boring and exerting, so people are on the lookout for easy way out such as chemicals and drugs which can either reduce appetite or enhance metabolism, i.e. help burn up excessive fat. For the former effect, drugs known as amphetamines were once very popular, but they have lost favour as their side effects are too many and too serious. DNOC stimulates metabolism by as much as 1200%, i.e. it burns fats 12 times faster than in a normal man. Obviously this will form a good candidate for weight reduction." "Then why don't doctors prescribe it for weight reduction?" "Because it is a very toxic drug. But early in the century several people did take it for the reduction of weight. When fatalities started occurring, the doctors came to know about its serious toxic nature, and they advised the people against taking this drug. But it was commonly available, as it was a herbicide, so people purchased it with impunity and many overweight girls are known to have consumed it in an attempt to become slim overnight. But in fact nothing of that sort happened. They died instead. Following the deaths of several girls in this way, the availability of this drug was restricted to certain people only. But still many people can get hold of this drug and may consume it. You may be surprised to know that today DNP and DNOC can be illegally bought over the internet too! Many gullible youngsters who fall prey to these internet advisers are paying with their lives. These internet advisers are quacks who encash upon the gullibility of such youngsters. They claim that their concoction would cause a quick weight reduction, but it doesn't. It kills them instead. DNOC is about 5 times as potent as dinitrophenol. The characteristic effect of these two drugs is the uncoupling of the oxidative phosphorylation, causing a great increase in tissue metabolism......" "Sorry to interrupt you doctor. You just talked about uncoupling of oxidative phosphorylation. I don't understand this term quite well. Can you explain me please?" "Tarun, this is a technical term the details of which I may not be able to explain in such a short discussion. But I will tell you certain basics. When glucose is burnt in the body to carbon dioxide and water, it passes through 3 stages. The last stage is technically known as oxidative phosphorylation. During each stage some energy is liberated, which is stored in the form of ATP (Adenosine TriPhosphate) molecules. DNOC and other dinitrophenolic compounds inhibit the formation of ATP molecules, without inhibiting the process of oxidative phosphorylation. This means that although body is burning glucose continually, it is not getting any energy in the form of ATP molecules. This situation when energy is being produced, but is not available for the formation of ATP molecules is technically known as uncoupling of oxidative phosphorylation. This excess energy has to be dissipated in the form of heat. That is why patients poisoned by this poison show high body temperature and sweating. Since body is not getting adequate amounts of energy, it tries to burn more and more glucose in a futile attempt to get energy. Even fat stores are mobilized, but all the energy produced is dissipated as heat. This is the basis of increase of metabolic rate by these compounds." "Oh, I see. But the symptoms are also seen in salicylate poisoning. How did you know she had taken DNOC?" "By the yellow stains on her hands. This yellow staining is very typical of dinitrophenolic compounds. When these compounds come in contact with skin, they form trinitrophenol or picric acid, which is yellow in color. By the yellow stains on her hands, I immediately realized that she must have handled dinitrophenol compounds. I believe she was quite concerned about her weight, and was taking this compound reqularly in small doses. I do not know where she procured this compound from, but probably she must have contacted one of those quick weight reducing quacks, who must have given her this compound. When she was taking small doses, nothing dangerous happened. But due to recent developments, she was quite convinced that she had lost Ramesh because of her weight problem. In a bid to overcome her weight problem overnight, she must have tried to get at it in one go, and may have consumed a great amount of drug immediately after Ramesh left. That is how the symptoms appeared." "But how are you sure, Ramesh did not administer her this drug?" "Because of this drug's peculiar color, odor and taste. No one can administer this drug to another by deceit, without the other immediately coming to know about it. I have exmained her blood and have found high amount of DNOC in her blood. The levels are about 100 mg/l, which is surley a fatal level. Subsequent to this, I asked the police to search her house and look for all medication bottles there. Normally the police would never have even peeped there. But following this discovery, they looked at her almirah and did indeed find a medicine chest. They brought her entired medicine chest. I noticed 3 suspect looking bottles and put their contents to examination, and in one of these, not very surprisingly, I did find high amounts of DNOC. The police have noted the name and address of the doctor from the label of that bottle, and a party has been despatched to UP to arrest that doctor. It appears that the quack who prescribed this medicine to her is based in UP, and during one of her visits to her parents, Seema must have picked this medicine." "Oh, how very clever of you doctor. Without your clever deduction, poor Ramesh would have unnecessarily been arrested and implicated. This was a most interesting discussion. Tell me what are you going to tell me the next time?" "Tarun, next time, I would tell you about a very interesting poison- Cadmium."

Forensic Toxicology THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE JULY 2000 ISSUE THE POISON SLEUTHS DEATH BY POTASSIUM BROMATE -Dr. Anil Aggrawal "Good morning doctor. Oh, my God, what are you doing today? You have the dead body of a young child today. What happened to him? Please tell me.” “Good morning Tarun. The name of this young child is Nitya, and he is four years old. He was the only son of his parents. Till yesterday evening he was alright. He was playing in front of his house quite cheerfully. After sometime, he started vomiting and felt very restless. His parents noted that he vomited some blood too. They became very afraid, and took the child immediately to the doctors. The doctors took it to be a case of gastroenteritis and started treating him along those lines. However the child failed to show any improvement and died today morning. Now the police has brought his body to me. My job of course is to tell them, how Nitya has died.” “But surely Nitya has died due to some natural disease. We don’t really need a post-mortem in this case, do we?” “Tarun, the doctors at the hospital where he was being treated have refused to give any cause of death. They say, that they just did not have the time to diagnose his disease. For all we know this could very well be a case of poisoning too.” “Really? Have the parents of Nitya given some hint in this direction?” “Police has made some enquiries and have come up with some interesting results. Ramlal, the father of Nitya was not going along well with his neighbor Raghav. Both Ramlal and Raghav claimed a hundred square yard plot somewhere in Ghaziabad. A court case was also dragging on in this connection for quite sometime. Recently there had been indications that Ramlal would ultimately win the case. Raghav had become very restless after that. He had sworn several times before neighbors that he would teach a good lesson to Ramlal. It is quite probable that Raghav gave some kind of poison to Nitya to get even with Ramlal.” “What do you think Doctor?” “Tarun, the first thing I did was to ask the police what Raghav does. They told me that he works at a modern hair saloon called “Hairwaves”. Now “Hairwaves” is really a very modern and posh hair saloon offering all kinds of hair treatments to their customers. The moment I heard this, I immediately became attentive, because a chemical potassium bromate usually found at hair saloons usually produces the kind of symptoms Nitya showed. Come to think of it, I think Nitya in fact has been poisoned by Potassium Bromate.” “But doctor how can you be so sure?” “Potassium bromate seems the most likely candidate Tarun. Now let me tell you that in Japan, in the 1960s and 1970s there were about 20 cases of suicides by hair dressers. And do you know which chemical they used for self-poisoning? All of them used potassium bromate, because this is so easily available to hair dressers.” “Doctor, it looks like we are on to one of your great stories. Why don’t you tell me about potassium bromate from the beginning?” “Tarun, the chemical formula of potassium bromate is KBrO3. Both Potassium and sodium bromate (NaBrO3) have no medicinal use. They are used solely as flour bleaches and as “neutralizers” in cold wave hair permanent kits, which can contain either 2% potassium bromate or 10% sodium bromate.......” “Sorry to interrupt you doctor, but what are flour bleaches and how are they used?” “Tarun, flour that we get from wheat has to be “treated” with the use of “improvers”. These “improvers” are nothing but oxidizing substances which enhance the baking quality of flour, allowing production of better and larger loaves. Relatively small amounts of these “improvers” are required, generally a few parts per million. Similarly to reduce the yellowness of the flour, bleaching agents may also be required. Although such improvers and the bleaching agents used to rectify excessive yellowness in flour are permitted in most countries, the processes are not universal. Improvers include bromates, chlorine dioxide (in gaseous form), and azodicarbonamide. The most popular bleacher used is benzoyl peroxide. But in many places potassium bromate is still used.” “Oh, I see. You used another word ‘neutralizers’. What are these?” “Tarun, there was a time when making the hairs wavy had become a fashion. In the late 1940s and during whole of 50s, it was fashionable to make the hair wavy. To do this, the hair was first treated with a milky waving lotion, the active ingredient of which was ammonium thioglycollate. At the appropriate time its effects were arrested by applying a neutralizer, i.e. a solution of potassium bromate, prepared from a small packet of the crystals. Outfits for permanent waving of hair by a cold process in the home became available in the UK round about 1950 and a little earlier in the United States. In the US in the late 1940s and early 1950s, home kits for making hair wavy were easily available, resulting in several cases of bromate poisonings, primarily in children under the age of 4. As I told you earlier, in Japan several cases were reported where hair dressers had apparently taken potassium bromate as a suicidal agent.” “Oh, that is most interesting. So this chemical is so dangerous that it can kill too?” “Yeah, and what makes it still more dangerous is that it is colourless, odourless and tasteless too, thus making it a very good candidate as a homicidal poison. A substance which is colourless, odourless and tasteless can be very easily administered to a victim mixed in his food, without him knowing anything about it. For the same reason, it can be taken by mistake too, especially if left in a cup or milk bottle. Cases have been reported in medical literature about the death of children who have ingested hair neutralizer accidentally. Many toxicologists in fact have talked about the possible danger of the ‘home perm’ outfits.” “Doctor, what are the other circumstances in which potassium bromate may be ingested by a human being?” “The majority of cases of poisoning are of course the result of accidents. A case has been described in the medical literature of the accidental poisoning of four adults who drank coffee prepared with fluid which proved to be hair neutralizer placed in an empty milk bottle. Except that they had thought the coffee tasted salty they were unaware of its nature until, half an hour later, they were seized with abdominal cramps and vomiting and, at the end of an hour, abdominal pain of a griping nature and diarrhoea. Fortunately all four made a complete recovery at the end of 24 hours. Hair neutralizer was administered by a woman to members of her family, apparently to enable her to enjoy the company of another man. She put some in her husband’s tea, and in orange squash which she gave to her daughters. The husband had abdominal pain which was ascribed to dysentery contracted while absent on military service. When the others became ill, the doctor suspected poisoning. The woman was later convicted of administering poison with intent to injure and was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment.” “Oh, that is quite interesting. What are the symptoms after ingesting this poison?” “Tarun, this compound is absorbed almost unchanged in the gastrointestinal tract. A very slow reduction of bromate to bromide may occur in the body, which can minimally elevate bromide levels in the blood. Potassium bromate causes gastrointestinal irritation and kidney damage as its principal effects and there may be incidental damage to the liver. Unlike potassium chlorate, however, potassium bromate does not break RBCs, a process known as haemolysis. The gastrointestinal symptoms are non-specific. Within half an hour the patient has nausea and vomits and this may be accompanied by epigastric cramps. Vomiting is repeated and may continue for a few days. There may be blood in the vomit. Within about an hour there is abdominal colic and diarrhoea. Some toxicologists think that the stomach and intestinal complaints are due to the caustic hydrobromic acid produced when bromate reacts with gastric juice. I may tell you that in Potassium chlorate poisoning, a special compound is formed in the blood. This is known as methemoglobin, and is chocolate brown in color. This feature has not been detected in humans with bromate poisoning. Fall in blood pressure may or may not occur. Severe poisoning leads to damage of kidneys and in consequence there is decrease in the formation of urine, coming to a complete halt after some time. This causes a rise in the blood urea concentration. In some cases generalized seizures are seen. It has been estimated that the fatal dose of potassium bromate is about 240-500 mg/Kg. If 300 mg/Kg is taken as the average fatal dose, then about 18 g would be required to kill a 60 kg man. The weight of Nitya is about 14 kg. So only about 4-5 g of potassium bromate must have been needed in this case. If you look under the microscope you would find that the kidneys of Nitya are damaged. Technically this change is known as renal tubular necrosis. Similarly I am also finding damage to his liver and heart, both of which are seen in potassium bromate poisoning. I have also recovered potassium bromate from Nitya’s stomach and have chemically identified it. There seems little doubt now that he was poisoned. And Raghav is indeed the poisoner. It was only he who had access to this dangerous chemical. He must have been taught during the course of his profession that this is a dangerous chemical. He somehow was able to smuggle some amount of Potassium bromate from his work place to his home. When Nitya was playing in the evening, he must have approached him with some kind of drink, may be a sherbet, in which he must have mixed potassium bromate. He wanted to kill Nitya, which was his way of getting even with Ramlal. Come let us tell the police who the culprit is. They will search his house, and if any of the remaining chemical is found in his house, everything would become very clear.” “That is very clever of you doctor. Without your clever deduction it would have been impossible to say how Nitya died and Raghav may have gone scot-free. What are you going to tell me next time?” “Tarun, next time, I would tell you about a very interesting poison - Ethylene Glycol."

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SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-11 WHAT DO THE BONES TELL US ? Two years back, I was called to a village near Alwar to solve a very bizarre case. While some digging was going on for a construction purpose, a laborer unearthed several bones. He immediately ran to his contractor and showed him the bones. The contractor contacted the police and the police in turn contacted me. That is how I came into the picture. While I was going through the police records of the area, I realized that about 2 years back a 22‑year‑old boy was reported missing from that village. His name was Suresh. There was a widely held rumor that Suresh had run away from his house in search of a proper job. It was common view that he was quite dissatisfied with his parents and wanted to live away in an independent manner. So, when, one day Suresh was not found in his home, everyone in the village assumed that he had run away from home. Suresh's parents however were not ready to admit that he had run away. They constantly maintained that he had fallen in the hands of some criminal who had killed him and had buried him somewhere. The real story was deeper than this. Actually, before Suresh's disappearance, nobody could even think about it. Suresh was in love with a local belle Geeta. She was the daughter of a rich money‑lender of the village, Karan Singh. Karan Singh had repeatedly warned Suresh not to meet Geeta but, since his own daughter was secretly in love with Suresh, he couldn't stop their meetings. Once he had openly sworn to kill them both, if they met again. About a month after Suresh's disappearance, Geeta was found missing from her house too. The story took a new turn now. Was Geeta secretly kidnapped by Suresh? Were Suresh and Geeta separately kidnapped and murdered by Karan Singh's goons? Or, was their disappearance totally unrelated to each other? Nobody knew what indeed had happened. To be sure, Geeta was extremely beautiful and she could very well have fallen in the hands of a rapist and murderer. But, how to know what had really happened. Nobody even was sure that Suresh and Geeta had been killed. When I examined the bones preliminary, I found two skulls among the bones, so it was sure that I was dealing with a least two dead people. But, I had to prove that out of them one skull was a male and the other, a female. Only then, could we prove that Karan Singh had indeed got Suresh and Geeta murdered. Not only that I had to prove that out of other bones too, half belonged to a male and half to a female. This was challenging task, but I decided to undertake it. How do we find out sex of the victim from the bones? Many times I have been asked this question by the police officers and public. In this case, I am going to provide you with my well kept secrets. Many sexual differences are found in the skull. Look at fig.1, carefully, which shows two skulls‑ one of a male and the other a female one. The upper one is male skull, while the lower one is a female. There are several ways in which we can say that a given skull is male or a female. One is to look at the bone just beneath the eyebrows. This is technically known as SUPRA ORBITAL RIDGE . It is much more prominent in a male skull than in a female skull (shown in the figure by arrows). Further when you see the angulation between the forehead and the nose, you find that in a male skull, this angulation is very prominent. The bone behind the ear is known as MASTOID PROCESS . This is larger, round and blunt in a male skull and smaller, smoother and pointed in a female skull. This point is also shown in the figure by arrows. There are several other differences in the skulls, but these three are very prominent in the given diagram and I generally infer the sex from these 3 points. Let us now come to the jaw technically known as MANDIBLE. The jaw bone above is of male, while the jaw bone below is of female. The jaw bone is squarer in the males while it is much more rounded in the females Fig 2. Hip bone shows the maximum differences between the two sexes. There are two hip bones in each individual. If you stand with your arms akimbo, your palms are over the hip bones. These hip bones unite with the back bone(SACRUM) and from a circular jug like structure known technically as PELVIS. Nature has made pelvis much wider in women because , women have to bear children. The babies, while they are within the bomb, remain enclosed by pelvis. If nature had made pelvis narrower in females, babies would find it very difficult to come out of womb at the time of delivery. It is the wide pelvis, which gives the females their characteristic waddling gait. We make use of this fact in determining, whether a given hip bone is of a male or of a female. Look at Fig.3, it shows 2 hip bones. The upper one is a male hip bone, while the lower one is a female. The angulation of the bone is more in male as shown in the diagram. There is a notch in the hip bone which is known as GREATER SCIATIC NOTCH . This notch is shown in Fig 4. This notch is more acute in the male and much wider in the female(as shown). The backbone or sacrum is shown in Fig 5. Sacrum is narrower in the male. You can guess that the sacrum on the left is a male one. Feeling like a detective already? Well, let's go on. There are differences in arm bones and thigh bones. The rounded projection, which you are seeing fits into the shoulder. This rounded projection is noticeably larger in the male. Yes, you are right; the bone on the left is a male one. Finally look at fig 7, it shows the thigh bones. The lower position fits into the knee joint. If we stand, the thigh bone erect on the table, then the male thigh bone known technically as FEMUR , makes a greater angulation than the female thigh bone. In the given figure, the bone on the left shows an angle of 80 0 and the bone on the right shows an angle of 76 0 , so obviously the left bone belongs to a male. Using these criteria, I could prove that there were in fact two sets of bones‑ one belonging to a male and the other to female. Armed with this knowledge, police raided the house of Karan Singh and took him into custody for interrogation, In the beginning he denied of knowing anything, but later broke under pressure. He admitted to having killed both of them when he realized that Geeta had becomes pregnant. The court gave him rigorous imprisonment for life. By reading this account you must yourself be feeling like a detective already. If you like, you may preserve these issues of 'Crime & Detective'. Who knows, one day you might turn out to be a great detective and help the police.

Forensic Toxicology THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE SEPTEMBER 1997 ISSUE THE POISON SLEUTHS POISONING BY RATTI SEEDS -Dr. Anil Aggrawal "Good morning doctor. Oh, my God, what are you doing today? Oh well, today you are examining the dead body of a young man. Oh, my God, what happened to him? He has a nasty looking puncture mark on his neck" "Good morning Tarun. The name of this farmer is Mahesh Lodi, and he is 25 years old. He has died in the most intriguing circumstances. About 6 days back, his neighbor Kiran visited him at about 10 in the morning, and demanded that he (Mahesh) should stop meeting his sister Geeta, with whom he was having a regular affair. Reportedly Mahesh refused to do this, as he was in deep love with her. Seeing that Mahesh was quite adamant, Kiran changed his stance and became suddenly soft. Apparently he wanted to leave his house, but before leaving, he asked Mahesh that he wanted to go to the bathroom to relieve himself. Mahesh who was quite relieved by Kiran's changed stance, happily showed him the way." "And so the matter was resolved there and then" "Not in the least Tarun. Actually Kiran and his family members had implored Mahesh on this count several times in the past too, because they wanted to marry her in a different family of their own caste, but Mahesh had refused point blank to stop meeting her. Reportedly even Geeta was adamant about this relationship, and that's why they wanted to pressurize Mahesh. This time, Kiran had come to settle this issue once and for all. After coming back from the bathroom, Kiran changed his stance once again, and began abusing Mahesh. Mahesh was completely taken aback by this renewed hostility. A physical tussle ensued between the two. During the tussle, there was naturally a liberal exchange of slaps and blows. During one such blow on the back of his neck, Mahesh felt as if something very sharp had stung him, but as he had a tough fight on his hands, he had to take care of Kiran first. Soon after he was able to push Kiran out of his house. After Kiran left the house, Mahesh tried to feel the area on the back of his neck where he had felt the sting, but as the area was behind his back, he could not examine it minutely and soon forgot about it. As he was feeling quite exhausted after the tussle, he went to the kitchen and drank a glass of water from the jug. Soon after, Mahesh started feeling unwell. The next day he had a nauseating feeling and vomited a few times. He contacted a doctor, who found that his pulse was rapid, and he was running a mild temperature. Thinking that he was probably running viral fever, he prescribed some fever lowering drugs (antipyretics) and pain killers (analgesics). But apparently there wasn't much relief. Day before yesterday, his condition worsened. He started feeling much weaker. He had diarrhoea too, and reportedly passed blood in his stools. He contacted his doctor again, who noted a peculiar puncture mark on the back of his neck, which was inflamed, which as you know means that it was looking angry red. Taking it to be a mosquito bite, he preferred to ignore it, although Mahesh was complaining of itching and local discomfort there. The doctor also noted that he had a weak but rapid pulse, cold perspiration and trembling of hands. He advised him to contact a City Hospital. But before he could arrange to go to the City Hospital, Mahesh collapsed and died. The doctor refused to give a death certificate, as he couldn't ascertain the cause of his death. So the police seized his body, and has brought it to me for post-mortem examination, so that I could tell them the cause of his death" "Very interesting indeed! It appears that Mahesh started having his symptoms only after he had a physical tussle with Kiran. The symptoms indicate that he was probably poisoned, but Kiran did not give him anything to eat. It could be that he surreptitiously mixed some poison in his water or food, before he left his house." "I can't deny this possibility, except for the fact that it is very unlikely. Kiran indeed went to the bathroom just before the fight, and it is indeed possible that instead of going to the bathroom, he went to the kitchen and mixed some poison in the water or food. But if he had done that, it was much safer for him to leave immediately after coming back from the "bathroom". Why would he unnecessarily pick up the fight?" "That indeed makes sense? Then why did he go to the bathroom? Do you sincerely think that he wanted to relieve himself?" "Doesn't seem very likely, especially considering the fact that immediately after coming from the bathroom, he changed his stance once again. I would rather say that he did go to the bathroom, but for a different purpose." "And what was that?" "To fix a poisonous needle between his fingers. These poisonous needles were probably lying in his pocket. When he went to the bathroom, he fixed one such needle between his fingers. That's why when he struck a blow on the back of Mahesh's neck, it was felt by him as a sting. In fact, with that blow, he had inserted the needle in the flesh of his neck" "Sounds quite interesting to me. But what poison could it be? "Tarun, I have dissected the area of the back of the neck, and I indeed have extricated this needle. Look, here it is." "Oh indeed, but it is not a metallic needle. Looks rather like a thorn to me" "Yes, indeed it is not a metallic needle. It is called sui or sutari in vernacular, and is made from a poisonous plant known as ratti in local language. Botanically this plant is known as Abrus precatorius." Ratti ( Abrus precatorius ) seeds "Oh, so it is a thorn from this plant?" "No, it is not a thorn of this plant. It is made after quite a painstaking effort. But before I dwell on this subject further, let me tell you a little bit more about this plant, so you can follow me more intelligently." "Please go ahead doctor. I am all ears" "Let us begin with the name of the plant, which itself tells us a lot. The name of the genus is Abrus which means graceful. It actually refers to the plant's beautiful flowers. The term precatorius is derived from precor, which means "to pray" because the seeds are often used as ornamental beans in rosaries meant for prayers. Several ornamental souvenirs are also made from these seeds. The plant is commonly known as Ratti or Gunchi in India. You might recall that ancient Indian weights and measures included tola, masha and ratti. This ratti referred to the weight of a single ratti seed. This seed was chosen as a standard weight in ancient Indian system, because its seed is fairly constant in weight; on an average, it weighs about 105 mg." "That is most interesting indeed." "There are more interesting facts related to this plant. The seed is known by several names, some of the more common ones are Rosary pea, because it is frequently used in rosaries - garlands meant for worship. For the same reason, it is also known as Buddhist's rosary bead or prayer bead. It has some other interesting names too. Some of these are Jequirity bean, Indian bean, Crab's eyes, Black-Eyed Susan and Indian Licorice. Licorice or liquorice is actually a European leguminous plant, known botanically as Glycyrrhiza glabra. The sweet tasting dried root of this plant, or an extract made from it, is used in medicine or as flavoring in confectioneries. Since the roots of abrus plant are also sweet tasting, the Europeans have named it Indian licorice. The plant is native to tropical Asia, especially India. It however grows in most warm, humid climates all over the world such as in the Caribbean islands and Florida. All parts of the plant are toxic, but the seeds contain the highest concentration of toxins." "What does this plant look like doctor? Can we identify it easily?" "Of course you can. It is a tender, twining plant which is woody at the base. The leaves are compound, featherlike, with 10 to 15 pairs of narrow leaflets 1/2 to 1 inch long. Flowers are pealike, 3/8 inch long, purple pink, yellowish or whitish. Seed pod is much like the pod of the ordinary edible pea; it is 1-2 inches long, borne in clusters, green when immature, becoming brown and dry, splitting open, and remaining on vine with seeds displayed. Seeds are quite attractive, and it is for this reason, that they are used for ornamental purposes. They are usually vivid scarlet with black spot at base. Some may be white with a black spot, others may be all white, or all black, yellow or even blue. In one pod there are about 4-6 seeds. The seed is oval or round, with a diameter of about quarter of an inch. It is pale and soft when immature, but hard, dry and glossy when ripe. "What poison do the seeds contain doctor?" "The seeds contain the deadly poison abrin, which is mainly responsible for the toxicity of this plant. It contains some other toxic substances too, but abrin is most dangerous. The sweet taste of the root is due to glycyrrhizin." "Doctor, you told me about Kiran using a sui to kill Mahesh. And you also told me that this sui is made in a very complicated way. Can you tell me more about it? And why can't one just mix the seeds in some food? What is the necessity of this complicated step of making needles out of this plant?" "Tarun, you have asked several interesting questions in one go. Let me explain them one by one. The seeds are about 100 times less poisonous when taken by mouth than when injected directly in the system. That is why killers prefer to make needles and inject them directly. The needles are made in quite an interesting way. The seeds are first decorticated i.e. their outer covering is removed. The decorticated seeds are powdered and then usually mixed with datura, opium, onion or powdered glass...." "Sorry to interrupt you doctor, but you have used several terms. What are datura and opium?" "They are also different poisons Tarun. We shall discuss them in some detail in our later meetings. For the time being you can remember that these are just some poisons which are used in this method. To be sure, their use is not an absolute necessity, as ratti seeds by themselves are quite poisonous, but apparently the killers want to leave no stone unturned!" "Wow! The killers are methodical too." "Certainly, why not. Well, the powder is then made into a paste with spirit and water, and long needles are fashioned out of this paste. The needles are about 1.5 cm in length - about the length of your thumbnail- and weigh about 100 mg on an average. These needles are then dried in the sun. When dry, they are known as suis or sutaris and are ready for use. As you know the name sui refers to a needle in Hindi. I have already told you how the killer uses these needles for killing. He may hold one or two such suis in his palm between his closely held fingers (the way one holds a cigarette; only much more tightly). The victim is then slapped in such a way that the suis penetrate the flesh. The effect is similar to giving an injection of abrin to the victim, and is thus obviously quite effective. You might be surprised to know that even animals are killed by this method. Almost the same method is used to kill animals too. Animals are usually killed for revenge. To take the revenge from an enemy, it is usual for a villager to kill his cattle! Animals may also be killed to prepare hides. The only difference in the method of killing is that in this case, the suis are attached to a wooden handle and the handle is then struck forcefully on the animal's buttocks. The needles find their way deep in the animal's flesh, from where the active ingredients slowly ooze out into the system, and the animal dies over a period of 3-4 days. The advantage of using this method, is that the injection marks of these suis look quite like viper bite (the necrosis around the marks is quite similar to that), and the owner of the cattle believes that his cattle were unfortunately bitten by the viper. Any chance of counter-revenge is thus averted. A clever killer may so arrange the distance between the two suis on a handle, as to completely mimic the distance between the two fangs of a viper!" "Oh, how very ingenious. I only wish killers could use their ingenuity for constructive purposes." "You can say that again Tarun. I sent the needle recovered from Mahesh's neck for chemical analysis, and it is found to contain high amounts of abrin. That proves my contention that Kiran indeed used the sui to kill Mahesh. I alerted the police to catch Kiran who would probably have gone scot free, but for this post-mortem examination. The police raided his house and have recovered lot of ratti seeds and some suis from his possession. In fact several ratti plants were growing in the backyard of his house. Subsequently the police questioned him. Initially he kept denying his involvement, but when faced with autopsy findings, he broke down and admitted his guilt. According to him, going to toilet was actually an excuse for fixing the needles in his palms. When Mahesh had refused to agree to his request, he had immediately made up his mind to kill him. In fact when he started out from home, he had kept this option in his mind, and for that reason, he had kept a handful of ratti needles in his pocket." "Fantastic! That indeed is a most outrageous poison solved in a most ingenious way. You indeed are a great poison sleuth. What are you going to tell me next time?" "Tarun, next time I shall tell you about a very deadly poison- Thallium. "

Forensic Jokes, Puns & Tidbits Forensic Puns 1. A tourist in Vienna is going through a graveyard and all of a sudden he hears some music. No one is around, so he starts searching for the source. He finally locates the origin and finds it is coming from a grave with a headstone that reads: Ludwig van Beethoven, 1770-1827. Then he realizes that the music is the Ninth Symphony and it is being played backward! Puzzled, he leaves the graveyard and persuades a friend to return with him. By the time they arrive back at the grave, the music has changed. This time it is the Seventh Symphony, but like the previous piece, it is being played backward. Curious, the men agree to consult a music scholar. When they return with the expert, the Fifth Symphony is playing, again backward. The expert notices that the symphonies are being played in the reverse order in which they were composed, the 9th, then the 7th, then the 5th. By the next day the word has spread and a throng has gathered around the grave. They are all listening to the Second Symphony being played backward. Just then, the graveyard's caretaker ambles up to the group. Someone in the group asks him if he has an explanation for the music. "Don't you get it?" the caretaker asks incredulously. [Guess now, before scrolling down] No cheating, make a guess before scrolling. Not even a wild guess before scrolling? He's decomposing.* 2. I was standing in line at an airport to check in for a flight. For 15 minutes, the queue hardly moved, and patience was wearing thin. Suddenly an irate voice from the back demanded to know what the holdup was. A voice from the front replied,"I'm afraid Riga mortis has set in." (Contributed by Chris Bane. Published in Readers' Digest December 1999 page 32) 3. Is it correct to say that all Forensic Personnel are in a grave situation?

Forensic Toxicology THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE JANUARY 1997 ISSUE THE POISON SLEUTHS POISONS, ANTIDOTES AND ANECDOTES -Dr. Anil Aggrawal "Good morning doctor. I have heard a lot about poisons, and unscrupulous criminals killing innocent people with poisons. Could you tell me a little bit about it?" "Good morning Tarun. Sure I would tell you about them. Poisons of various descriptions were commonly used in ancient times by unscrupulous people to kill their enemies. Even today, mere mention of the word poisoning is enough to conjure up in the minds of most people ideas of diabolical infamy. No doubt this is due to what they have read about the subject in history. Numerous killers in the past set out to achieve their evil designs by using poison to dispose of those who stood in their way. The records over the ages are replete with accounts of this kind. By its very nature, poison is premeditated and secret- the real horror lies not so much in those poisonings that are discovered but in those which remain undetected." "Should be exciting to know about such an interesting thing. But first, would you tell me what you call this science?" "Tarun, the study of poisons in all its aspects is known as toxicology. You would be surprised to know that this word has an unusual origin. It comes from the Greek word toxon which means a bow for shooting arrows. The word toxeuma meant an arrow. Since in ancient times, poisons were often used on the tips of arrows to render them more lethal, the word toxicos came to refer to such a poison. From this we get the word toxicology. Of course you would be knowing that the Greek word logos means "the study of" or "the science of". If you combine the two words, you would understand the proper meaning of the word toxicology." "That is certainly interesting doctor. I do recall now that another term for archery is toxophily. So that explains the origin of this other entirely non-related term too." "Sure Tarun. Greek philos means "love of". So the term toxophily literally means "love of arrows". A person who loves archery is often known as a toxophilite. I may tell you that in the year 1545 A.D. a man called Roger Asham published a book called Toxophilus. The intended meaning of the title was “lover of the bow”. Since then the word toxophilite has come to be associated with archers. Another term for poison is toxin, which also has the same origin. Of course, in modern times, we use this word more often in connection with bacterial poisons." “And what is the origin of the word “poison” doctor?” “The origin of this term is also quite unusual. The word comes from Old French puison, which means ‘drink’. The French word itself comes from Latin potio, which has the same meaning. The word drink came to be associated with poison in a very interesting way. Many times in the past, the poison was mixed with drinks. In English, the French word puison entered as poison. This term was initially applied to a drink prepared with a poison. Later, the poisonous substance itself came to be known as poison.” "Good. Doctor, could you please tell me why poisons are so much important in the annals of crime and crime detection?" "Tarun, poison has been called "the coward's weapon". It is administered unemotionally and by stealth, often little by little over a long period, and in full recognition of the victim's often prolonged suffering. Special hatred attaches to the poisoner, who is regarded as more sinister than the gunman or knife-user. The poisoner is thus reviled for his lack of pity. He often kills his victim in cold blood, unlike a gunman who often kills in the heat of the moment. A poisoner carefully plans for the murder, and he knows exactly what he is going to do, and what the result of his deeds would be. It is commonly supposed that female murderers resort more readily to poison and get away with it more readily than their male counterparts. This prejudice probably arises because of the activities of such celebrated historic poisoners as the Marquise de Brinvilliers (1630 - 1676) and Mary Ann Cotton (1833 - 1873), whose murderous ways probably accounted for a collective total of well over a hundred lives. Mary Ann Cotton, thrice married former nurse is regarded as Britain's greatest mass murderer...." "You mean to say that these women killed as many as 100 people among them? That certainly is outrageous." "I haven't finished yet Tarun. An Italian woman of the 17th Century, Madame Giulia Toffana (ca. 1635-1719), invented a strong poisonous mixture in about 1690, and is reputed to have been responsible for as many as 600 killings! She is perhaps the greatest poisoner of all time. Her invention was called Agua Toffana, also sometimes referred to as Aqua Toffana, Aquetta di Napoli, Manna of St. Nicholas di Bari, or Elixir of St. Nicholas of Bari, Bari being a town whose water had healing qualities. Aqua Toffana literally means "the water of Toffana". It was a poisonous liquid containing the deadly arsenic. She sold it to the would-be-murderers who paid well for it and were instructed about its poisonous properties and its potential as a lethal weapon. She was executed at Naples in 1719. After her death Heironyma Spara of Rome imitated and perfected her art. She was a sorceress and fortune-teller by profession, but trained young housewives in the art of poisoning too. Sixty years before Toffana's execution - in 1659, she is said to have formed a society in which she taught women how to murder their husbands by means of poisons. Her influence increased as a number of bored wealthy housewives gathered around her. She was eventually arrested by the Papal police, and as was the custom in those times with poisoners, tortured on the rack. She refused to confess. Nevertheless she was hanged along with a dozen other women, suspected to have been her aides. "Even kings and queens did not refrain from giving poisons. Poisons were given not only to their rivals but also to the poor deliberately just to study their effects on human beings! You may be surprised to know that Catherine de Médici (1519-1589) of Florence and later queen of France tested and carefully studied the effects of various toxic concoctions on the poor and the sick. At this time, France was literally infested with poisoners. The pinnacle of the "poisoners' glorious period" reached in France, in the late 17th century when a woman Catherine Deshayes (1638-1680), also popularly known as La Voisin developed a flourishing trade in selling poisons to wives who wished to rid themselves of their husbands! She is said to have been responsible for the death of many thousands, and could well have been a greater poisoner than even Toffana. La Voisin was burnt at stake in 1680." "This is certainly most outrageous. It is also surprising that even kings and queens revelled in poisoning others!" "You would be surprised that even Popes and their children have been involved in notorious poisonings. The most famous case is of the 15th and 16th century family of Borgias which flourished in Italy. The most notorious poisoners of this family were Cesare Borgia (1476-1507) and Lucrezia Borgia (1480-1519) who dispatched several of their rivals with a secret poison, then known as "La Cantarella". Their name is so inseparable with 15th and 16th century Italy, that whenever there is a mention of this time and location, the name of Borgias immediately springs to one's mind. Most people associate them with murder-by-poison plots. They were the illegitimate son and daughter of one Rodrigo Lenzuoli Borgia (1431-1503), who went on to become Pope Alexander VI from 1492 onwards till his death. He is said to have had five children by his mistress Vanozza de Cattanei, out of which two - Cesare and Lucrezia - proved to be most notorious. La Cantarella, often known as "the poison of the Borgias", was a secret poison and no one seems to know its composition today, but it most probably was a mixture of subacetate of copper, arsenic and crude phosphorus. Borgias were such feared poisoners that a historian, Max Beerbohm has made a very interesting comment about them. At one place he says, that in fifteenth century Italy, though one might have heard a snobbish Roman say, in a would-be-off-hand tone, ‘I am dining with the Borgias tonight’, no Roman was ever able to say, ‘I dined last night with the Borgias.’! Borgias were not only dreaded poisoners, but they had other vices too. For instance, incest is supposed to have been rampant among them, with Lucrezia rumoured to have had sexual relations with her father and brother. Certainly her first husband Giovanni alleged incest between Lucrezia and her father. He was so apprehensive of the whole family that he fled Rome in great terror. In 1501, she brought out a son, then aged three. He was recognized by papal bulls first as the son of Cesare (her brother), and later of Alexander (her father). " "Lucrezia sounds like an interesting character. Can you tell me more about her?" "Sure. In her short life span of 39 years, she married as many as three times. Some historians think that Lucrezia probably never poisoned anyone, but certainly her brother Cesare dispatched several people with poison. She was most probably used by her father and brother to further their own political ends. She married for the first time in 1493 into the powerful Sforza family of Milan. This was just one year after her father was made a pope. However as we have already seen, her husband ran away from Rome in terror. In 1497, her father Alexander annulled the marriage, and in 1498, she married one Alfonso, an illegitimate son of the King of Naples. In 1500, he was murdered at the behest of Cesare. The following year (1501), she brought out a son, and as we have seen earlier, he was three years of age at that time. She married for the third time in the same year (1501); this time to the son of the Duke of Ferrara. This marriage was arranged by her brother. After her father's death in 1503, she retired to Ferrara, where she spent the last days of her life." "How was La Cantarella, the famous poison of the Borgias prepared?" "The recipe sounds quite interesting. It is believed that first of all a hog was killed with arsenic. Its abdomen was opened and sprinkled with more powder, which contained more poisons. Some historians think that the powder contained just arsenic, but it might have contained other poisons as well. The animal was then allowed to putrefy. The juices which trickled from the decaying corpse were collected and evaporated till only dry powder remained. This dry powder was called La Cantarella" "That's remarkable! You said that the Borgias lived in Italy. Were the Italians as skilled poisoners as the French?" "Sure. In fact it were the Italians who developed poisoning to a fine art! You may be surprised to know that in Venice there was a "Council of Ten" who met regularly to arrange poisoning for the State and their written records are preserved. Victims were named, prices agreed and contracts with poisoners recorded. When the deed was accomplished the marginal note "Factum" was written in the record and payments were made, sometimes in the form of a regular pension. The "Council of Ten" appears to have had a number of poisons in their repertoire. Three of them are preserved as the "secreta secretissima" in archives dating from 1540-1544 A.D. Their chief ingredients were corrosive sublimate (mercuric chloride), white arsenic (arsenic trioxide, also known as Sankhya or Somalkhar in Hindi), arsenic trisulfide and arsenic trichloride. So rampant was poisoning in 15th to 17th century Italy, that expert poisoners ran schools for would-be-poisoners, just as there are schools today for medical and Engineering entrance examinations! Even the great Italian Renaissance man Leonardo the Vinci (1452-1519) experimented with poisons." "Really! It seems he didn't leave any area of knowledge untouched. Anyway can you tell me, what those experiments were?" "Leonardo invented the so-called technique of "passages", in which an animal was killed by an injection of poison and the essential organs that had been impregnated with the poison, such as the liver, spleen and lungs were then removed. An extract was prepared from these organs and administered to another animal and the process was repeated. With each "passage" the strength of the poison was supposed to increase. He also studied the procedure in plants. In an effort to produce most innocuous looking poisons such as fruits, he injected the bark of certain fruit trees with potassium cyanide. The idea was that it would rise up along the conducting system and be incorporated in the fruits. The resulting fruit were of course poisonous, but contained only small amounts of cyanide. They had to be eaten for weeks before they could cause death." "Fantastic! Did his recipe manage to kill someone after all?" "Tarun, legend has it that at a banquet in the house of Lodovico Il Moro, fruit from Leonardo's garden was presented to Giangaleazzo Sforza, who was fighting for Italian unity. More fruit was sent to him during the following days, until he finally died of poisoning." "Unbelievable! What about the tradition of poisoning in our own country?" "Tarun, ancient Hindu physicians were very well-versed in the art of poisons. The famous Indian surgeon Sushruta who lived in the 7th century BC defined agadatantra, which is very much akin to the modern term of "toxicology". It dealt with the diagnosis and treatment of any person bitten by poisonous insects or venomous reptiles or affected by any natural, artificial or compound poison. Tradition also tells us that many Indian kings used to have poison damsels or Vish Kanyas in their courts. Legend has it that they were fed on poisons right from their birth, and were thus made so venomous that a mere kiss would prove fatal to her lover. It is said that when Alexander the Great invaded India, King Chandragupta sent such poison damsels to him, in consultation with his minister Chanakya." "It seems to me now that poisons held a kind of morbid attraction for the ancient people and that most ancient cultures revelled in studying them." "You can say that again. Take for example the Egyptians. you may be surprised to know that the earliest documentary accounts of poisons are to be found in ancient Egypt. Three millennia before Christ, Menes, the first of the Pharaohs, is reported to have cultivated and studied poisonous and medicinal plants and to have accumulated animal, mineral, and vegetable poisons. Ebers Papyrus also mentions several of them...." "Doctor, sorry to interrupt you, but what is Ebers papyrus?" "Tarun, it is one of the oldest medical documents available. It was found in the 19th century, between the legs of a mummy in a tomb near Luxor which is a town on east bank of river Nile in upper Egypt. It was advertised for sale, and acquired by Professor Ebers in 1872; hence the name Ebers papyrus. The papyrus is dated about 1550 BC, and it reveals many customs, traditions and practices of the ancient Egyptian doctors. It describes over 800 recipes, many containing recognizable and identified poisons-for example, hemlock, aconite, opium and some of the toxic heavy metals such as lead and antimony. Some of the pharaohs are known to have experimented with poisons, perhaps for practical matters of government and State. Similarly the mythology and literature of classic Greek history also shows a considerable knowledge of poisons. In the Odyssey of Homer, Helen is described as discreetly introducing into the wine of Telemachus and Menelaus a drug that acted as a powerful anodyne. An anodyne as you know is a drug which relieves pain. In Greek legend, Hecate was knowledgeable about aconite, Medea was familiar with the properties of colchicum and Hercules is said to have met his end from wearing a shirt after his wife had impregnated it with poison. The first professional treatment of toxicology begins to appear in various Greek writings in around 3rd to 4th century BC. Thus Theophrastus, who lived from 370 to 286 BC, a pupil of Aristotle, included numerous references to poisonous plants in his work De Historia Plantarum. Nicander of Colophon (204-138 BC) wrote two treatises, which are the most ancient works devoted entirely to poisons. One was on snake poisons, the other on plant poisons, including opium, henbane, poisonous fungi, colchicum, aconite and conium. Nicander divided poisons into those that killed quickly and those that killed slowly and he recommended emetics in the treatment of poisoning, a recommendation which is valid even today." "Doctor, can you tell me how many poisons exist in this world?" "Nobody really knows Tarun. It has been said that anything and everything in the world can act as a poison. It is merely a matter of dose. A drug which acts as a medicine in small doses may act as a poison in a large dose. A striking example is that of common salt. We all take it daily in small doses, but half a kilogram of it can kill a man. That way it also is a poison. Of course, nobody could give common salt to his enemy in such a large dose. In a more accepted sense, the term poison is restricted to those chemical substances which kill in very small doses. The idea of classifying all known poisons has vexed scientists since ancient times. The Greek physician, Dioscorides (AD 40-90) classified poisons under three headings. They were the animal poisons, such as cantharides, toads, snakes, etc; poisons from plants, including opium, hyoscyamus, mandrake, hemlock, aconite, cherry laurel and yew, and mineral poisons, including arsenic, copper, mercury and lead. This simple classification remained in use for many centuries and is still vaguely recognizable in modern classifications of poisons. "I have heard that poisons were used as a mode of capital punishment too." "Yes, you are right. Poisons were used by the ancient Greeks as a means of capital punishment, the best remembered case being that of Socrates who was given hemlock. It was also used as a means of political assassination, though this use was developed on a much greater scale by the Romans subsequently. Thus started the search for antidotes for poisons. In fact it became a practical necessity if the king wished to survive in office." "Doctor, you introduced a new term antidote. What is it?" "Tarun, antidotes are the remedies administered against poisons. The term literally means "give against". It is derived from the Greek words anti or against and didonai, to give. The most famous example of an antidote was that devised by King Mithridates VI. He was king of Pontus in Asia Minor, living from 114-63 BC. The Roman scholar Pliny (AD 23-79) wrote a good deal about him. Mithridates experimented with poisons, trying them out on condemned criminals, and he also tried out various antidotes to the various poisons on these prisoners, either before they were poisoned or immediately after they were poisoned to see whether in fact the antidotes were effective. In this way he discovered various antidotes or what he considered to be antidotes against different poisons and he then compounded them all together in order to produce a universal antidote which could neutralize any poison. Adopting an overcautious approach, he then began taking this supposed universal antidote daily, so that nobody could secretly kill him with poison. It is often stated that the original recipe had more than 36 ingredients; Greek physician Galen (AD 130-200) said there were 54!" "Great! Did this recipe help him finally?" "This has an interesting ending. Eventually Mithridates was defeated by the Roman general and statesman Pompey (106-48 BC) and holed up in his fortress; he massacred his wives, concubines and daughters and he then took poison to commit suicide, but, alas, protected as he was by his daily dose of his magnificent antidote, the poison failed to act! The antidote by this time was known as Mithridatium. Perhaps he failed to die from poison because of this antidote. He had to get his Celtic soldier servant to stab him to death with his sword! After his defeat and death, Pompey discovered Mithridates' notebooks on antidotes for poisons, and so Mithridatium became known in Rome." "And the science of poisons and antidotes moved on to Rome?" "Well, the Roman emperor Nero (AD 37-68) showed a great interest in poisons. Andromachus, one of Nero's personal physicians, improved the formula of Mithridatium and it then became known as Theriac of Andromachus, containing 64 ingredients-and this included the flesh of vipers! For some strange reason, people have always thought that the flesh of vipers is a good antidote to poison. Perhaps this thought arose because the snakes are poisonous yet they do not die of their own poison, so it is rather reasonable to think that the snakes' flesh acted as an antidote. Viper's flesh was a very common ingredient of any antidote that was developed in ancient times. In the course of time Theriac became not only an antidote against poison but also a panacea against all diseases and it was in medical use until the 18th century. To prevent fraud, in many cities, including Venice, Montpellier, Toulouse and Strasburg, Theriac was carefully compounded and prepared in public under official supervision! Even today Theriac jars can be seen in museums. It was only in the 18th century, that a serious challenge was mounted against this antidote. In 1745, William Heberden (1710-1801), one of the most outstanding physicians of London of the mid 18th century published a critical analysis of this antidote. It was entitled Antitheriaka: An Essay on Mithridatium and Theriaka." "Are there some other so-called Universal antidotes too?" "Sure there are. Other universal antidotes which survived for centuries in popular use were bezoars-stomach stones-found in certain animals, particularly ruminants and some varieties of goats. They were probably gallstones. These were first used in the Middle East and they were introduced into Europe by the Arabs, who still have some faith in them in some parts of the Middle East to this present day. These stones were pulverized and put into drinks of wine to treat cases of poisoning, but small stones were also mounted and worn as amulets as a protection against poison. Bezoars were also thought to be very effective against snake bite." "How popular were the bezoar stones?" "Oh, they were very popular - even among the kings and queens! Charles IX of France (1550-1574) was once presented with a bezoar of which he was very proud. Ambroise Paré (1510-1590), French physician and one of the most notable surgeons of the European Renaissance told him that there was no universal antidote, much less the bezoar that he possessed, but so strong was everyone's belief in bezoars, that Charles refused to believe him. Somehow Paré coaxed Charles into conducting an experiment - if somewhat disgusting and gory - to convince him that bezoar was indeed useless. Paré suggested that Charles test his bezoar on a condemned criminal. Charles IX agreed to this happily. He sent for his provost and asked if he had on hand any prisoner who merited hanging, and was told that there indeed was such a prisoner. He was a poor cook who had stolen two silver plates from his master, and he was to be hanged the next day. You may be surprised at such a severe punishment being handed down for such a trifling crime, but it was the order of the day. The cook's consent was taken, who was only too happy to give the consent. He is supposed to have said that he would like much better to die of poison in the prison, than to be strangled in view of the people. And of course there was an outside chance of him being saved by the bezoar, in which case, he would probably have been let off, as a kind gesture. The apothecary was asked to give him a poison, and he duly administered him a strong dose of bichloride of mercury, immediately after which he was given the bezoar stone. The poor cook immediately started vomiting and purging, and so burning was he from the inside that he asked for water immediately. It was given to him. An hour later the cook was on all-fours, going like an animal, his tongue hanging out from his mouth, his eyes and face red, retching and in cold sweat, bleeding from his ears, nose, and mouth. Paré made him drink oil, which was probably a much better remedy, considering the state of knowledge in those times. Oil acts as a demulcent and might have served to prolong his life somewhat. The cook died an agonizing death after seven hours, cursing that he would probably have been better off at the gibbet. The king was so disgusted that he burnt the bezoar - or whatever was left of it." "That might have brought about an end to an era of superstition." "Not at all! So strong was the belief in bezoars that even after this convincing experiment, Charles never lost faith in bezoars; he only thought he had been cheated. To be sure, it was very common in those days to pass of ordinary pebbles as costly bezoars. In fact during the reign of King James I of England (1566-1625), considerable attention was attracted by legal action brought against a goldsmith for having sold a hundred pounds' worth of counterfeit bezoar stones. In any case, the use of these stones did not cease at all; they even spread across the Atlantic! It is known that Governor John Winthrop (1588-1649), first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the chief figure among the Puritan founders of New England desired a bezoar to use in his practice. He was supplied one by John Endicott (1588-1665), who in turn had procured it from one Mr. Humphry." "Oh, that is certainly most interesting!" "Tarun, then there was another very interesting substance being touted as the Universal antidote. It was the Unicorn's horn. It was supposedly derived from the mythical unicorn. The unicorn, as you surely must be knowing is a mythological animal resembling a horse or a kid with a single horn on its forehead. Unicorn's horn was first described as far back as 400 B.C. by the historian Ctesias. Although the Unicorn as is described in most legends never exists, there IS an actual animal which resembles the mythical unicorn, and that is the Narwhal. Also spelled as Narwal, or Narwhale (Monodon monoceros), it is a small whale belonging to the family Monodontidae. It is found along coasts and, sometimes, in rivers throughout the Arctic. It is mottled gray in colour and grows to about 16 feet long. It has only two teeth, both at the tip of the upper jaw. In the male, the left tooth develops into a straight tusk protruding forward from the upper lip. This tusk grows to about 8 or 9 feet in size - about one and a half times your height - and it was this tusk, which was prized in medieval times as the fabled horn of the unicorn. Interestingly, it is grooved on the surface in a left-handed spiral. Rare males may develop two tusks; females usually develop none. The tusk has no known function; it is believed to have developed as a result of sexual selection. Quite possibly the tusk of a rhinoceros was also being passed off as the Unicorn's horn." "Was the Unicorn's horn as popular as the bezoar stones?" "Oh, certainly! They were being sold for thousands of dollars. A specimen in Dresden was estimated in the sixteenth century to be worth $75,000. So costly was it, that its use was confined to the nobility. Ordinary lay people simply could not afford to buy it. So afraid were kings at this time (of poisoning), that the Unicorn's horn became part of official regal dowry! When Henry II (1519-1559) the king of France , married Catherine de Médicis (1519-1589) in 1533, Pope Clement VII, bride's uncle presented Francis I - the bridegroom's father - with a piece of unicorn's horn. A legend was rife at this time that the unicorn purified poisoned waters with its horn so that other animals may drink. Interestingly it was valued as a remedy despite the fact that the identical substance is in every tooth and is therefore in the mouth of everyone who has any teeth. During medieval France, there was the curious custom among the nobles and kings of dipping the unicorn's horn in any drink before it was taken. Court intrigues were rife at the time, and one was always worried about getting poisoned from some unsuspected enemy. Many would go a step ahead and would drink from a cup made from such a horn! The famous French physician Ambroise Paré tried to abolish this custom, but was unsuccessful. In England, the belief in unicorn's horn as an antidote for poison lasted until the reign of Charles II, when the Royal Society was requested to investigate the properties of a cup made from such a horn. The society reported that the cup was useless as an antidote. Like the bezoars, Unicorn's horn also enjoyed popularity across the Atlantic and it is known that Governor Endicott loaned Governor John Winthrop a horn for use in his medical practice." "Fantastic! Bezoars...Unicorn's horns...Were there other Universal Antidotes too?" "Yes, sure, there were several others. Another interesting universal antidote was Terra Sigillata, a special clay earth from a particular hill on the island of Lemnos. It might have had some value, as clay is quite adsorbent, and it must have adsorbed some poisons. This clay was often formulated with goat's blood to make it into a paste. Like the bezoars and the Unicorn's horn, there was fraud in its sale too. And it was quite easy. Because virtually any kind of clay - which is so easily available - could have been passed off as the real one from the Island of Lemnos. To prevent fraud, this special clay was often prepared in tablets and stamped with a seal, thus giving the substance its name. Later, other sources of similar earth were found in different parts of Europe and in the 16th and 17th Centuries mugs were made of it, from which anyone could drink without fear of poisoning. In much modern times, another formulation has been touted as the Universal antidote, and it was supposed to consist of 2 parts of activated charcoal, 1 part of magnesium oxide and 1 part of tannic acid. It definitely sounds more scientific than the bezoars, Unicorn's horns and Terra Sigillatas, but it is equally worse - probably much more. The reason is that it could be quite easy to convince a scientifically minded person of the uselessness of the bezoars etc. but it takes quite an effort to convince him of the uselessness of such scientifically sounding formulation as the so-called "modern universal antidote". You may be surprised that even in several of today's text books, this antidote finds mention as a useful antidote. Till recently it could be purchased legally from respectable chemists' shops under the trade name Unidote® or Res-Q®. The latter as you can very well see is an interesting take-off from the word "rescue", implying that it would rescue one from every kind of poisoning." "Alright, but what was the idea behind this antidote?" "Tarun, it was thought that charcoal would adsorb many alkaloids, magnesium oxide would neutralize acids without gas formation and the tannic acid would precipitate many of the glucosides and several metallic poisons. But it was all humbug, simply because the ingredients which were included were not the real thing. Burnt toast was included as activated charcoal - which it is not; strong tea was included as tannic acid, and milk of magnesia was included to account for magnesium oxide. Even if actual ingredients were included, it is doubtful if it would have been of any use. This Universal antidote has probably killed more persons that it has saved, simply because it instilled false sense of security among people, who were poisoned. They did nothing except taking this antidote and died. Had they not fallen prey to this false sense of security, they would probably have taken advise from some wise doctor, and would have been able to save their lives." "Oh, certainly. What has been the status of toxicology in modern times?" "Tarun, modern toxicology has emerged from the dark, murky world of secret poisoners, fantastic antidotes and so on. The last 150 years have seen great progress in the analysis of poisons. Today, with modern techniques and instrumentation, the most minute traces of alien compounds can be detected, not only from tissues and organs at post-mortem, but also in biological samples such as blood and urine collected during life. The science of antidotes has also become more scientific. We have moved from the age of Mithridatium, bezoars and Terra Sigillata to the age of physiological antidotes and chelating agents. Several medical journals are devoted solely to the study of toxicology. Toxicology is taken up by several promising young students as their career. It is no longer the murky, shady, crime-infested vocation of the poisoners; instead it has become a true science pursued by brilliant investigators. Toxicology is a promising career for any young scientist." "Thank you doctor for introducing the science of poisons to me. What are you going to tell me the next time?" "Tarun, next time I shall tell you about Arsenic, which has often been called the 'King of poisons'. "