Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) is an exceptional scientist who opened a new era in medicine and biology. Starting from studies on crystals of by-products of wine fermentation, he first defined a distinct chemistry between dead and living matters. He then showed the role of living microbes in the fermentation and putrefaction processes. This brought him to challenge the two-millennium-old theory of s...

Mummification of lung tissue is not unusual due to 2 factors: it contains few of the epithelial cells with large concentrations of hydrolase-rich liposomes that are associated with the putrefaction process, and the area of desiccation is very large, due to the large volume of aerated regions.1 However, it is rare to find examples with intact structures. In this paper, we present a mummified ind...

The use of maggots and diatoms conjointly has proved to be an important factor in the medicolegal cases referred with advance decomposition. In practice it is quite much difficult to determine Post Mortem Interval (PMI) and as well as to ascertain ante-mortem drowning factor in the bodies, which are being recovered with advance putrefaction. However the analysis of co-existing evidences associa...

ADJUVANTS, PRESERVATIVES AND TISSUE FIXATIVES IN VACCINES V contain a number of substances which can be divided into the following groups: 1. Micro-organisms, either bacteria or viruses, thought to be causing certain infectious diseases and which the vaccine is supposed to prevent. These are whole-cell proteins or just the broken-cell protein envelopes, and are called antigens. 2. Chemical subs...

The advantage of detecting diatoms in bone marrow (diatom test), is that it could be used in coming to a con­ clusion about suspected death by drowning in severely putrefied bodies where the usual signs of drowning are not present (1). However, the diatom test is controversial, with opponents and champions (2). According to some the diatom test provides the most reliable test of death by drowni...

INTRODUCTION The aim of this study was to determine the problems encountered during investigations into causes of death in corpses found in wells, sewer systems and pits, and to seek solutions to the problems. In fact, wells, sewer systems and pits have some common characteristics which may cause the problems. They contain water, have a hypoxic/anoxic environment and prevent corpses from being ...

The paper presents a personal identification case of an unrecognized corpse, presumably belonging to a male missing for four years. The cadaver was buried in a ground ditch and covered with slaked lime and soil. During the investigation the burial place was indicated. The corpse was exhumed and afterwards transferred to the Department of Forensic Medicine, Medical University of Białystok. Exter...

Previous papers dealt with the discovery that hydrolysis of 17-hydroxycorticosteroid glucuronides in urine with fi-glucuronidase preparations from bovine liver is increased by adding sodium sulfate to the incubation medium. Here, we conclude that sodium sulfate not only increases the activity of bovine liver /9-glucuronidase on 17-hydroxycorticosteroid glucuronides and p-nitrophenyl glucuronide...