Forensic science is a scientific discipline, which is a system of special knowledge in the field of medicine. It is devoted to the study of patterns of occurrence of factors related to the human body. Thanks to it, you can determine the method of damage to human flesh. Special research methods are used for this, which make it possible to give a principled assessment of what is happening and the factors that cause damage. In other words, forensic medicine is a source of evidence that is necessary in pre-trial proceedings. Without them, it is impossible to begin or finish a single business. When conducting a crime scene inspection, the law on investigation allows you to examine the object under test in detail, and all this is forensic medicine. As a science, it arose in connection with the need and need for conducting forensic experiments and practice.
Forensic Medicine Definition
What is forensic medicine? This is a niche where algorithms exist for working with bodies, and they help to establish whether a person was sick or healthy during his life, was he in danger, being on the verge between life and death, which methods killed him, and who could be involved. A forensic examination is also carried out against the suspects:
- This is a crime scene inspection and study of materials collected for the case.
- Fingerprinting.
- Fence of genetic traces for comparison.
- The scientific and practical base is also applied to witnesses.
This is a whole science that is improving in the name of its goals. The practical implementation of knowledge in this area is carried out in the form of examinations. They are also divided into species, depending on the area and subject of study.
What does forensics study?
The subject of forensic medicine is a living person - this is an interpretation of legal terminology. Living faces can be either living (literally) or dead. In relation to them, the injuries suffered during life are studied, which led to a non-fatal or fatal outcome. Also, upon the fact of death, the causes of a defect in medical care (medical negligence), the degree of injury, the causes of sudden and sudden death, which is strange for the investigating authorities, are established.
Also, the concepts of forensic medicine include such aspects as the study of crime instruments, subjects related to the investigation of a case. All objects relate to material evidence, and it doesn’t matter whether a person’s fingerprints are taken or the flesh of a corpse is taken. Studying medicine objects in two ways:
- Immediate - this is the work with bodies, when the verification of death is carried out. Assays and autopsies are prescribed, which gives a complete picture of the causes of death and injuries sustained.
- Indirectly - when you need to find out the details of information recorded in magazines stored on information media and not only. This includes the conclusions of doctors, pathologists and other persons.
Case histories, outpatient records and medical books are considered the main evidence in any case, which includes the records of doctors in clinics and public hospitals. Non-medical examinations are examinations of crime scenes. These include:
- Protocols from the scene.
- Vehicle inspection protocols.
- Reference materials on meteorological conditions.
- Hydraulic characteristics of water bodies and much more.
All of the indirect factors listed above can help to recreate the picture of the incident. If we are talking about a specific case, then they can request not only a search warrant, but also confiscate confiscated cameras. They are considered to be a source of reliable information, but they can also be verified by requesting a series of studies for authenticity. You can apply for a handwriting examination, DNA testing, and more.
The so-called “case materials” may be of an informative nature, not being direct or indirect evidence. When it is necessary to draw up a portrait of a person, witnesses should be interviewed. Their testimonies will be listed in the case as materials. In the absence of corpus delicti, no evidence, third-party interviews, or conclusions exist. When appointing a forensic analysis, its results will be considered fourth on the scale of significance of expert research. They reflect information and information about corpses, living faces and real evidence.
For example, a murder weapon was found at the crime scene, according to a medical examination - the person was killed with a knife (by assumption), the wounds were deep, so they were killed with a stabbing or blunt object. Inspection of the knife from the scene will be to create a group of characteristics - a general view, purpose and places where you can get it. If during the examination similarities are revealed (identical blood groups, traces and not only), the knife is considered a tool, and the person who owned it is suspected.
Then all the information about the objects becomes the case materials, and the forensic examination reflects similar data - their authenticity and their relationship. However, this cannot point directly to the offender, since the blood groups of all participants in the process may be similar, traces of the fat on the skin - no. So, additional checks are assigned until a picture of interconnected evidence is established. Their appearance is explained only by the suspect, who expresses his version of the occurrence of indirect evidence.
They can also be checked for a “foundling”, since before inspection and collection of evidence, erasures, fakes, supplements and other actions aimed at concealing evidence and reliable information can be carried out.
If you suspect a change in the primacy of the document and entries in it, additional examinations will be carried out. Sometimes it takes years, so it’s permissible to introduce technological verification factors - lie detectors and polygraphs.
Objects in legal aspects
Some legal institutes in Europe supplement forensic medical examinations with interviews of witnesses, which are attended by specially trained professionals in reading facial expressions and lip words - profiler. This is a verifier, a person studying psychodiagnostics. Sometimes people with knowledge from the field of physiognomy are invited to compile a psychological portrait of a person.
Pre-war history
The history of forensic medicine begins in Russia with the mention of a mandatory examination of persons who have been injured. The solution was introduced in the 13th century. It was carried out by judges, not doctors. By the XVII century, doctors began to take part in the examination, when a medical report was required regarding mechanical damage, poisoning. Forensic medicine did not study wounds in those days, only doctors conducted a superficial examination. In 1716, the Military Statute of Peter the First prescribed the obligatory autopsy, when there was a suspicion of violent death. For the first time, these procedures were carried out in the army, navy and large cities of Russia, since there were not enough doctors in the villages for this. In 1746, an autopsy obligation was introduced if death was considered sudden. Institutes of county and city doctors were created.
As a document regulating the examination, the journal “Instructions to doctors during the judicial examination and autopsy of dead bodies” appeared. Already in 1842, the charter was approved, which lasted until 1917. In 1864, the introduction of vowel proceedings was introduced, which implied the inclusion of a scientific explanation of the autopsy results for medical experts. After that, changes and adjustments were made.
The teaching of forensic medicine began at the end of the 18th century, and a course of lectures was conducted in conjunction with lectures on anatomy and physiology. Then exercises on epidemiology, sanitation and hygiene were added. And in the XIX century, departments of forensic medicine were already established. Later, textbooks and manuals were published by S. A. Gromov, E. V. Pelikan, P. P. Zabolotsky and many others. Due to state reform in the field of criminal law, after the October Revolution in 1918, the Civil Department of Medicine was organized in the RSFSR. The rights and obligations of experts were registered in 1922-1923. in the Code of Criminal Procedure of the RSFSR.
At the same time, the Central Forensic Laboratory was founded in Moscow, which was reorganized in the Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Medicine of the Ministry of Health of the USSR in 1931. In the pre-war period, domestic medicine was replenished with a number of original literary publications and manuals.
The history of medicine after the war
During the Second World War, a branch of military medicine appeared, which formed as a separate branch of science and law in 1943. Doctors were part of the Extraordinary State Commissions to identify the atrocities of the Nazi invaders. In the post-war period in 1946 reference material on examination was published. Basic research by physicians then played an important role in organizing the blood transfusion of the wounded. The next issue published guidelines for:
- Inspect the corpse at the crime scene.
- Inspect the scene.
- Forensic examination of the body.
- Histological study of objects and subjects of examination.
- Medical gynecology and obstetrics.
- Examination of living persons.
- The study of clothing and material evidence.
- Monographs of certain types of damage.
- Forensic wounds were studied.
- Automotive facilities.
Later, supplements to books were published in the form of a guide and a guide for conducting body examination after poisoning. Forensic medicine has also begun to study types of mechanical asphyxia, alcohol intoxication, and more. Forensic medicine is currently being studied at universities and educational institutions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Lawyers are also aware of what measures can be taken to detect traces, determine fixation, and remove material evidence to which expert assessments need to be applied. The training of doctors in injuries in forensic medicine is carried out in an internship, residency and graduate school.
Types of forensic examination
The law provided for several types of examinations:
- Primary
- Additional.
- Re.
- Commission.
- Integrated.
The first is appointed for the first time when conducted solely by a forensic expert. If questions arise to the expert, or new case materials appear, an additional examination is appointed. Repeated is needed with an unjustified expert opinion, and a commission is needed to solve particularly complex issues. They gather a college of doctors, after which it is possible to attract certain categories of doctors. Comprehensive examination is the study of one object from different angles, when several experts are working on the same evidence. As a result, the data analysis contains the opinion of the pathologist, for example, the therapist and surgeon.
Practical methods
Forensic methods are complexes of supporting strategies for determining the causes of death and not only. The following are used in practice:
- Cadaveric research - reveals the causes and circumstances of death.
- Examination of living persons - the method helps to establish the causes of injuries, how they were caused and with what force; violation of sexual integrity and features of labor.
- Laboratory methods are an important place in medicine, because different types of examinations are carried out. These are histological, cryoscopy, fluorescence, physico-chemical, modeling in a laboratory.
- Experimental - animal studies are carried out, which is important when studying the characteristics of poisoning, asphyxia and biological reactions.
- Study of investigative materials - the forensic method is used when documents are collected, and the expert extracts from them the information necessary for the examination.
After all the methods, a consultation of doctors and experts is conducted and an opinion is issued to the investigating authorities.
What solves this kind of medicine?
The main objective of forensic medicine is to assist the judiciary and investigative authorities in solving crimes that have been committed against individuals against their life and health, as well as sexual integrity. Knowing the basics of this discipline, the investigator can facilitate the expert conducting a qualified examination by collecting all the evidence on his own. Also taken into account is the competent wording, characteristics of the instrument of injury and not only.
The theoretical knowledge of a lawyer can help a competent specialist expert in mastering the situation. Particularly important is teamwork, where the judge and the investigator combine practical experience and theory together.
The content of the judicial opinions
It is imperative that each conclusion must contain the data of an expert, so that if violations in the work are detected, they can be removed. The disclosure of their data is transparency and openness to the law, and the concealment of facts is a crime. Witnesses present during the analysis should also be indicated. If the materials were transferred to another expert, then you need to indicate - for what and why.
These moments of legal relations are displayed in the directories of each area of expert assessment.
Forensic medicine and forensic psychiatry - what connects them?
The two disciplines are independent, but they are connected by the field of knowledge that is necessary for solving a crime. Two training niches help in the effectiveness of creating increasing expert opportunities. The conditions for the professional training of lawyers are created, which will cooperate with the investigation department and experts in the laboratory.
The combined disciplines also help in choosing the use of methods for investigating cases. Materialistic ideas about the essence of mental diseases are formed, the symptoms of primary diseases are revealed. This will lead to an understanding and presentation of the general picture of the behavior of mentally ill patients. Thanks to tactical techniques of investigative acts, knowledge of forensic medicine and psychiatry are used simultaneously.
The role of forensic medicine in modern society is the correct presentation of data on the crime against human life and health.