Table Of ContentFORENSIC MEDICINE –
FROM OLD PROBLEMS TO
NEW CHALLENGES
Edited by Duarte Nuno Vieira
Forensic Medicine – From Old Problems to New Challenges
Edited by Duarte Nuno Vieira
Published by InTech
Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia
Copyright © 2011 InTech
All chapters are Open Access articles distributed under the Creative Commons
Non Commercial Share Alike Attribution 3.0 license, which permits to copy,
distribute, transmit, and adapt the work in any medium, so long as the original
work is properly cited. After this work has been published by InTech, authors
have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they
are the author, and to make other personal use of the work. Any republication,
referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify the original source.
Statements and opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual contributors
and not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. No responsibility is accepted
for the accuracy of information contained in the published articles. The publisher
assumes no responsibility for any damage or injury to persons or property arising out
of the use of any materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained in the book.
Publishing Process Manager Davor Vidic
Technical Editor Teodora Smiljanic
Cover Designer Jan Hyrat
Image Copyright Africa Studio, 2010. Used under license from Shutterstock.com
First published August, 2011
Printed in Croatia
A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com
Additional hard copies can be obtained from [email protected]
Forensic Medicine – From Old Problems to New Challenges, Edited by Duarte Nuno Vieira
p. cm.
ISBN 978-953-307-262-3
free online editions of InTech
Books and Journals can be found at
www.intechopen.com
Contents
Preface IX
Chapter 1 Avoiding Errors and Pitfalls in
Evidence Sampling for Forensic Genetics 1
B. Ludes and C. Keyser
Chapter 2 Death Scene Investigation from the
Viewpoint of Forensic Medicine Expert 13
Serafettin Demirci and Kamil Hakan Dogan
Chapter 3 Diagnostic of Drowning in Forensic Medicine 53
Audrey Farrugia and Bertrand Ludes
Chapter 4 Forensic Investigation in Anaphylactic Deaths 61
Nicoletta Trani, Luca Reggiani Bonetti, Giorgio Gualandri,
Giuseppe Barbolini and Margherita Trani
Chapter 5 Forensic Age Estimation in Unaccompanied
Minors and Young Living Adults 77
Andreas Schmeling, Pedro Manuel Garamendi,
Jose Luis Prieto and María Irene Landa
Chapter 6 Epidemiology and Diagnostic Problems
of Electrical Injury in Forensic Medicine 121
William Dokov and Klara Dokova
Chapter 7 Child Deaths 137
Gurol Canturk, M. Sunay Yavuz and Nergis Canturk
Chapter 8 Child Abuse and the External
Cause of Death in Estonia 177
Marika Väli, Jana Tuusov, Katrin Lang
and Kersti Pärna
Chapter 9 Sexual Assault in Childhood and Adolescence 189
Hakan Kar
VI Contents
Chapter 10 Cannabinoids: Forensic Toxicology and Therapeutics 215
Helena M. Teixeira and Flávio Reis
Chapter 11 Pharmacogenetics Role in Forensic Sciences 251
Loredana Buscemi and Adriano Tagliabracci
Chapter 12 Forensic Pharmacogenetics 267
Susi Pelotti and Carla Bini
Chapter 13 Forensic Microbiology 293
Herbert Tomaso and Heinrich Neubauer
Chapter 14 Advanced Medical Imaging and Reverse
Engineering Technologies in Craniometric Study 307
Supakit Rooppakhun, Nattapon Chantarapanich
and Kriskrai Sitthiseripratip
Chapter 15 House Dust Mites, Other Domestic
Mites and Forensic Medicine 327
Solarz Krzysztof
Chapter 16 Types and Subtypes of the Posterior Part
of the Cerebral arterial Circle in Human Adult Cadavers 359
Ljiljana Vasović, Milena Trandafilović, Ivan Jovanović,
Slađana Ugrenović, Slobodan Vlajković and Jovan Stojanović
Preface
Forensic medicine has attracted considerable attention from the media and general
public in recent years, largely due to the impact of successful television series dealing
with the subject and to certain high-profile cases (involving crime, natural disasters or
technological accidents) in which it played a significant part.
Forensic medicine is a continuously evolving science that is constantly being updated
and improved, not only as a result of technological and scientific advances (which
bring almost immediate repercussions) but also because of developments in the social
and legal spheres.
We are undoubtedly living in a period of constant rapid change. Thus, if forensic
medicine departments are to fulfil their role as centres of training, expertise and
research, the professionals working in them need to be attentive to those changes by
being prepared to constantly update their knowledge and skills. One of the most
important ways of keeping in touch with new developments in the field is through
reading, which enables us to share in the reflections and experiences of other
professionals and brings us into contact with different realities and perspectives.
A great many books have been published about forensic medicine in recent years.
However, most are very similar in structure, with chapters that review the various
areas of expert intervention; indeed, the only differences between them tend to
concern certain concepts and/or the geographical background of their author(s). All
continue to give priority to the traditional paper format, which, despite its many
advantages, also brings limitations, conditioning access to contents (particularly
amongst professionals from poorer countries) and restricting dissemination and
circulation.
This book does not follow this usual publication policy, and in that respect, it is not
simply new, it is (if I may dare to say so) radically new. It contains innovative
perspectives and approaches to classic topics and problems in forensic medicine,
offering reflections about the potential and limits of emerging areas in forensic expert
research; it transmits the experience of some countries in the domain of cutting-edge
expert intervention, and shows how research in other fields of knowledge may have
very relevant implications for this practice.
X Preface
There are chapters on the potential of pharmacogenetics and forensic microbiology,
chapters offering different perspectives on perennial themes such as the diagnosis of
death by drowning or anaphylactic shock, others reflecting on the particular
experience of some countries in areas as problematic as child abuse, and some that
apparently have little or nothing to do with forensic medicine at all (such as the
chapter about research into cerebral vascularisation), but whose results ultimately
have a huge relevance for expert practice in forensic pathology.
This book is thus a miscellany of different approaches to various aspects of forensic
medical practice, all of which are extremely interesting. Precisely because it is a
miscellany, there seemed little sense in grouping the texts into different chapters or
areas; hence, they have been ordered thematically.
When I was contacted by InTech to edit this work, I initially hesitated, wary of
reviewing and pronouncing upon texts by authors that had not been selected by me
and which had been submitted somewhat randomly without any prior guidance or
structuring. But InTech is one of the biggest Open Access publishers of scientific books
today, with high-quality publications, worldwide readership and no copyright
transfer, and it was that which ultimately prompted me to accept the invitation. For
this is an entirely new posture in the world of publishing. Indeed, my decision to
participate as editor was strengthened when I discovered amongst the authors some of
the world’s leading authorities in the field of forensic medicine whose work I have
long admired and respected, alongside some newer names, people who were taking
their first steps in international scientific publications and producing articles of a very
promising quality.
All in all, this has proved to be a particularly interesting experience, from which I have
derived great pleasure and benefit, and I truly hope that the reader will find in the
book the same opportunities for professional enrichment as I have done.
Finally, some acknowledgements are due. Firstly, my thanks go to InTech for having
invited me to participate in this work as editor, and to Davor Vidic, publishing process
manager of this book, for the support, professionalism and efficiency with which he
responded to my multiple requests, as well as for his endless patience with regard to
my own systematic delays in responding to him. But above all, I would like to thank
the authors for having taken the time to write the chapters contained in this book
(thereby generously sharing their knowledge, experiences, reflections, expert practice
and research with the international forensic medicine community) and for having
contributed economically to the publication of this work, particularly as most of them
could easily have published their texts in any other scientific journal or book. With
this gesture, they have thus made possible the publication of an Open Access book
that is free to professionals around the world and only a click away, thereby
demonstrating a highly-developed social conscience as regards the growing
imperative to openly share information. Indeed, it is my opinion that those that have
achieved a particular status, professional or academic, in the world of forensic
