2017

Forensic
Science,Autopsy
surgeon and X
Roman Al Mamun
Forensic Death DR.
Investigator.

DR. Roman
Al Mamun

[EXAMINATION OF BUNDLE OF BONES

DURING AUTOPSY]
At times some skeletal remains may be recovered from an open land,
ditches, rubbish dumps etc., or a skeleton may exhumed from a temporary
grave, a burial ground, or even while new constructions.
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 X
Roman Al Mamun
DR.

How will you examine a BUNDLE OF

BONES during Autopsy? :
At times some skeletal remains may be recovered from an open land,
ditches, rubbish dumps etc., or a skeleton may exhumed from a temporary
grave, a burial ground, or even while new constructions.

The bones should be listed and the photographs are preferably taken.
The bones should be arranged in an anatomical position of articulation.
If some earth, sand, dust etc is sticking to the bones, it is to be cleaned by
brushing.

General Examination of Bones:

The bones are thoroughly examined as to whether the bones are dry,
clean, brittle and whitish in colour with cartilages attached or whether they
are moist and humid, yellowish or yellowish brown, with soft tissues still
attached and cartilages adhering.The stage of putrefaction of soft tissues
should also be noted.

Cleaning the Bones:

The soft tissues can be separated by boiling in water containing sodium
bicarbonate for about 6-12 hours and then brushing gently.

Examination Proper:
Whenever a skeletal remains or a single bone is brought for examination to
the forensic expert, the following questions need to be answered:

1.Whether they are actually bones:

Sometimes pieces of stones may be mistaken by the Police officer for
bones.
For this, proper examination, looking for the protuberances, surfaces,
borders etc. is necessary.

2.Whether the bones are human or animal?

Human skull is commonly mistaken for that of the Chimpanzee, Gorilla or

Monkey.
The bones can be differentiated from that of an animal from the anatomical
configurations.
In an animal skull, glabella is more prominent, nasion is deeper, jaw is
protruded and the cranium is small in size.
In Human pelvis, iliac crest and upper border of symphysis pubis lie in the
same plane whereas in animals they lie in different planes due to different
postures while walking.
Precipitin test being species specific would be helpful when the remnants of
blood are still attached to the surface of bones.

3.Whether they belong to one or more than individuals:

The bones are arranged in anatomical position and if all the bones fit
properly and anatomically and there being no disparity between the bones
of contralateral side or duplication and all bones belong to same age and
sex it suggests that the bones are of same individual.

4.The race of the person to whom the bones belong?

Race of the individual can be known from cephalic index that is 70-75
when the skull is dolicocephalic in pure Aryans, 76-79 in mesaticephalic
skull of Europeans and 80-84 in brachycephalic skull of mongoloids.
The other indices used to determine race are (i) Brachial Index (ii) Crural
Index (iii) Humero-femoral Index.

5.The sexing of bones

Gives definite results only after puberty.
The sex of the person can be determined from the subjective and objective
parameters.
The subjective parameters include the examination of different bones
determining the sex such as the pelvis, skull, long bones, mandible,
sacrum, sternum, clavicle etc.
When the bones are strong having rough surface, marked muscular
marking and well marked prominences and tubercles they belong to males.
Children attain half the adult weight by about 12 years in case of boys and
under 11 years in case of girls. The pelvis is the best bone used for the
purposes of sexing; the accuracy for sexing from different bones according
to Krogman is from pelvis (95-96%), skull (90- 92%), skull and pelvis (98-
99%), long bones (80%).

The objective indices for determining sex include: (i) Sciatic notch index (ii)
Ischium pubic index (iii) Pelvic index (iv) Kell index.

6.The age of the person to whom it belongs?

The age of the person can be determined from the ossification and union of
the bones state of dentition, closing of sutures, state of calcification of
laryngeal cartilages, sternum and hyoid bone, condition of the symphyseal
surfaces of the pubic bone, changes in the sacrum and mandible, extent of
wear and tear in both the jaws with ageing and changes like bony lipping,
osteoporotic and osteoarthritic changes.

Epiphyseal union is about two years earlier in females compared to males.

The age changes after 25 years and in old age can be ascertained from the
changes in the mandible, vertebra, pubic symphysis and internal bone
structure.

7. The stature of the individual:

The stature is determined fairly accurately using the long bones such as
femur, tibia, humerus or radius. The tibia being the best bone used for the
purpose. Hepburn’s osteometric board is used for the purpose of
measuring the lengths of long bones accurately.
The length is then divided by the multiplication factors as devised by Pan
and Nat.
8. Identifying features:

The person identity can be established from the teeth, any congenital
peculiarities, any bony disease or deformities such as caries, osteoarthritis,
mal-united fracture, spinal deformities, supernumerary ribs and cervical ribs
etc.
when the skull is available, the superimposition technique can be used by
comparing the skull with the photograph of the individual.

9. Nature of injury:

The bones should be examined as to whether they are any sharp cuts, or
any fractures implying use of blunt weapon or from a vehicle or sometimes
they are gnawed by animals when the soft tissues are attached.
The charred and blackened bones are suggestive of burns.
But in case of intense heat of fires, the bones turn to ashes and are so
brittle as to turn to powder when touched.
Superficial bones when burnt will show evidence of heat fractures,
charring,and cracking, splintering and calcining whereas bones lying
embedded amidst thick soft tissues will show molten or guttered condition.
A bone when burnt in open fire will become white but when burnt in close
fire is black or ash-grey.

10.Time since death:

The nature and circumstances of burial of the body modifies the rate of
decaying of the bone.
If the bones are wet and humid, and have an offensive odour, they are
recent.
Bodies when exposed to open air gets skeletanised within seven to
fourteen days.
But when the bones loose their soft tissues, the decaying odour will be lost.
Because of ground water seepage, the buried bones may show increase of
decrease of mineral contents e.g. calcium phosphate, calcium carbonate
etc. depending upon mineral rich content of soil.
X-ray defraction studies may give an idea about the mineral content of the
bone.
Following putrefaction, the bones loose their organic constituents and thus
become light and brittle, dark or dark brown in colour, such changes
depend upon manner of burial (withor without coffin), the nature of soil of
the grave, age of the individual etc.; usually the time taken for these to
occur varies between 3 to 10 years.
In case of burial in mass graves of in shallow graves without any coffin,
putrefaction will occur very rapidly.
Long buried bones may have chalky texture.
Bone marrow and periosteum may persist in the bones for several months
often afterburial.
Superficially buried bones may expand or crack within few years by
repeated freezing or thawing.
When burial is old, the cancellous bone at the metaphysis and epiphysis
may get eroded by effects of weather.
In case of fracture, the time may be judged with some accuracy by
examining the callus by cutting it longitudinally.
As globulin disappears rapidly, precipitin tests on 10 years old samples
become negative.

The Dating of Human Bones:

Examination of the bones rarely, if ever, permits a precise estimate of the
time interval since deposition in the ground.
At the same time it is possible and important to decide whether they are
‘ancient’ or ‘modern’ bones that the interval is greater or lesser than 50
years.
In recent years, a considerable amount of research has been carried out in
an attempt to increase the accuracy of dating skeletal remains.
Some of these depend on sophisticated laboratory techniques, such as
radiocarbon analysis, which are difficult and expensive to perform.
Radio-carbon is essentially a tool for archeologists and its forensic use is
limited because of the insignificant fall in the C-14 content of bones during
the first century after death.
This is the stumbling block for many physical and chemical methods for
bone dating, as although old samples (in excess of 100-200 years) can
fairly readily be differentiated from recent bones, discrimination between
the dates of skeletal remains recent enough to be of interest to law
enforcement agencies and coroners, is too poor to be of much practical
use.
The environmental conditions are more potent than age in causing
progressive degeneration of the bone; even different parts of the same
skeleton (and even opposite ends of the same long bone) may be quite
different in their chemical and physical properties, if local changes in
inhumation such as drainage, are marked.
Bones in wet peaty soil may be decalcified and crumble within two
decades, yet bones in dry gravel or sand may remain almost pristine for
millennia.
Naked eye appearances are very deceptive, but bones with remnants of
periosteum, tags of ligament or soft tissue other than adipocere are likely to
be less than 5 years old, unless kept in a dry protected place. A ‘soapy’
texture of the surface, from residual fat, also indicates a date of less than a
few decades.
The various laboratory test used for the purpose of dating human remains
include the following but results of each test should be interpreted in the
light of the others and with due regard to the macroscopic appearances
and the fullest information of the place of concealment and any
circumstantial evidence.

1.Nitrogen content:

New bones contain 4.0-4.5 gm% of nitrogen, derived mostly from the
collagenous stroma.
After a variable interval following death, usually longer than 60-100 years,
this declines.
A value of 2.5gm% usually indicates an age of at least 350 years.

ii. Amino-acid content:

Amino acid content is estimated by autoanalyser after acid hydrolysis of the

residual protein.
Up to 20 acids may be found in bones less than a century old.
They then decline in number and concentration.
Earlier work using thin-layer chromatography suggested that praline and
hydroxyproline (constituent of collagen) vanished by about 50 years, but
the more sensitive modern methods of analysis do not confirm this.
iii. Blood pigments:

Blood remnants may be found up to a century using the most sensitive,

though non-specific tests.
As benzidine have carcinogenic activity, other tests such as
phenolphthalein and leucomalachite green can detect blood only up to 5-10
years, using either bone dust or the periosteal surface as the test area.

iv. Fluorescence:

Fluorescence can be seen across the whole freshly sawn surface of a long
bone under ultra-violet
light for more than a century, but beyond this time, declining fluorescence is
seen advancing from both the outer surface and the marrow cavity.
The ‘sandwich’ of fluorescence progressively narrows during the first 50
years and may vanish with 300 500 years.

v. Immunological activity:

Eluted extracts of bone when tested against animal antihuman serum

gives a visible antibodyantigen
reaction, either in cross-over electrophoresis or by passing diffusion in gel.
Early work suggested that this persisted for 5-10 years, but recent
repetition of the tests indicated that it ceases within months of death.

11.Cause of death:

Presence of depressed comminuted fracture, cut injury or bullet wounds in

the skull, facture-dislocation of the vertebral column, facture of ribs, hyoid
or any other limb bones etc.
will be informative, pointing towards the cause and nature of death.
Metallic poisons like Arsenic, Lead,Antimony, Mercury etc. can be detected
in the bones long after death. Arsenic can be recovered even from
examination of charred bony fragments.
From the type and depth of cut in the bone the nature o of the offending
weapon can be made out.