|
Abstract
|
Introduction
A poison is a solid, liquid or gaseous substance, which if introduced in to the living body, or brought in contact with any part produces ill effects or death by its local, systemic or both types of action.
Objective
The present study was carried out with a view to study the incidence and key features of postmortem findings in poisoning and their demographic distribution in forensic autopsy cases.
Methods
A ten years retrospective study of all medico-legal autopsies of poisoning deaths was undertaken between 1st January 2006 to 31st December 2015 in the department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, Government. Medical College, Amritsar, Punjab, India.
Results
Incidence of poisoning deaths is 5.66% of total autopsies. Most common age group amongst the males was 21-30 years; Male to female sex ratio was 2.59: 1. The maximum number of deceased practised Sikhism 392 (67.82%), followed by Hinduism 140(24.22%), Christianity 6 (1.04%) and Muslims 1 (0.17%). Males out numbered female victims amongst all the religion groups except Muslims. As far as the mode of intake of various poisons is concerned, oral route was most preferred one in majority. Detailed analysis of 578 cases of deaths due to various poisons has revealed that Irritant metallic & non metallic poisons 479 (82.87%) were the most common type of poisons detected in the present study, followed by cerebral-inebriant type in 17 (2.94%) cases. the colour of gastric contents was black in 112 (19.38%) cases, green in 34 (5.88%) cases, blood stained in 106 (18.37%) cases.
Conclusion
As the main profession of rural population in Punjab is agriculture and in the present study three types of major poisons used as pesticides in farming have been reported i.e. aluminium phosphide, organ chloride and organophosporus compounds.
Language: en |