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PATHOLOGY

المؤلف:  Max M. Houck، Jay A. Siegel

المصدر:  Fundamentals of Forensic Science

الجزء والصفحة:  211

2026-07-21

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PATHOLOGY

Forensic anthropologists work closely with forensic pathologists and may often be able to provide information beyond what a pathologist may know. Certain aspects of the pathologist’s and anthropologist’s work necessarily overlap, however, and these most often are in the areas of wounding and healing of bone. The distinction of greatest importance for forensic anthropologists is the differences between premortem (before death) and postmortem (after death) injuries. Living bone has different mechanical properties than dead, dried bone and this leads to different reactions to traumatic events. Any sign of healing in bone is definitive of a premortem injury. Wounds or breaks that occur near the time of death (called perimortem injuries) may be difficult to distinguish from trauma that occurs shortly after death because the body will not be alive long enough to begin noticeable healing. It is possible to distinguish between perimortem and long-term postmortem cuts using electron microscopy: At the edge of a fresh cut, the soft tissue will have dried and pulled back from the edge of the cut, whereas in a bone cut, after the soft tissue has dried, it will be at the edge of the cut, as pictured in Figure 1.

FIGURE 1 It may be possible to distinguish between cuts made when bone was fresh (perimortem) and when it was dry (postmortem). The soft tissue from a fresh cut will dry and pull back from the cut in the bone (arrow on the left), whereas it will remain at the edge of the cut in the dry bone (arrow on the right) because it was already dried.