MEDICOLEGAL AUTOPSY – A REVIEW

Dr. Deepti Patel*, Dr. S. R. Inchulkar and Dr. Yuvraj Kaushik

ABSTRACT

An autopsy also called necropsy or postmortem examination, is the examination of a person’s body after death. It is an essential part of investigation to determine the cause of death and is used in case of unknown or uncertain death. An autopsy is of mainly two types Medico legal autopsy and clinical autopsy. The main aim of an autopsy is to determine the cause of death, the state of health of the person before he or she died and whether any medical diagnosis and treatment before death was appropriate. Forensic autopsies differ in the purpose and procedure from clinical autopsies but sometimes they overlap with each other at various levels. The autopsy should be carried out by the registered medical practitioner preferably with training in forensic medicine. Requirements for autopsy examination are including instruments and chemicals. Procedure consist of external and internal examination. The aim of this review article is to understand the concept, procedure, types of autopsy, to know about its importance in knowing the exact cause of death is natural , unnatural , accidental. Through this article, we can throw light on autopsy, which will be helpful for the medico-legal aspect and related laws will be easily understable.

Keywords: Postmortem, Death, Medico Legal, Autopsy, Forensic Medicine Etc.