Forensic Medicine and Anthropology Questions and Answers

Answer: B

A pedophile's sexual activity is directed at children.

Paedophilia is a paraphilia in which an adult is sexually attracted to prepubescent children. In forensic medicine it is discussed among unnatural sexual offences, and the abuse may take the form of anal intercourse with a child, which is why the question is phrased this way.

Anal intercourse with an older woman, with a homosexual adult or with a hijra is sodomy, but not paedophilia, since the defining feature of paedophilia is that the partner is a child, not the act itself.

Answer: C

The autopsy conducted is a medico-legal autopsy.

Every unnatural death, including an accident, is a police case in which the law needs the cause and manner of death established. The autopsy is therefore ordered by the investigating officer or magistrate, and performed to answer legal questions: the identity of the deceased, the cause and time of death, and whether the injuries fit the account of an accident.

An anatomical autopsy is a dissection of a donated body for teaching anatomy. A clinical (pathological) autopsy is done in hospital, with the relatives' consent, to study disease in a natural death. 'Individual autopsy' is not a recognised type.

Answer: D

Dry drowning is drowning where death is due to laryngospasm.

In dry drowning, water entering the larynx triggers an intense reflex spasm of the vocal cords. The airway closes, little or no water reaches the lungs, and death is from asphyxia. At autopsy the lungs therefore lack the water-logging and froth of typical (wet) drowning, which is the origin of the name.

Drowning in sea water is a form of wet drowning, distinguished by its hypertonic fluid. Sudden death on entering cold water from reflex cardiac arrest is immersion syndrome (hydrocution). 'Drowning of a dehydrated body' is not a recognised type.

Answer: D

Shovel-shaped incisors are most frequently found among the Chinese.

Shovelling is a ridge of enamel along the edges of the lingual surface of the upper incisors, which makes the tooth look like a shovel. It is one of the dental traits used in forensic anthropology to estimate ancestry: it occurs in a large majority of East Asian (Mongoloid) populations, and also among Native Americans, who share that ancestry.

It is uncommon in people of European and African ancestry and only moderately frequent in Australian Aboriginal populations, so those options are less likely than the Chinese.

Answer: B

About 450 centres of ossification are present at birth.

The skeleton develops from about 806 centres of ossification in all, primary and secondary. Around 450 of them have appeared by birth, and the rest, mostly secondary centres in the epiphyses, appear during childhood and adolescence. As they fuse, the number of separate bones falls to the 206 of the adult skeleton.

So 806 is the total number of centres over life and 206 the adult bone count; neither is the number at birth. 600 does not correspond to any standard figure.

Answer: A

The pelvis gives the better estimate of sex.

The pelvis is the most sexually dimorphic part of the skeleton, because the female pelvis is adapted for childbirth: a wider sciatic notch, a wider subpubic angle and a broader, shallower pelvic inlet. Some of these differences, especially in the greater sciatic notch and the ilium, can be seen even in the foetus, although sexing a foetal or child skeleton is much less reliable than an adult one.

The scapula, femur and clavicle differ between the sexes mainly in size and robustness, differences that appear only after puberty, so they are of little use for a foetal skeleton.

Answer: A

The big four are race, sex, height and age.

In forensic anthropology the biological profile of unidentified remains rests on four basic determinations: ancestry (race), sex, stature (height) and age at death. Together they narrow the list of missing persons who could match the remains, before individual features such as old fractures, dental work or DNA are used to confirm identity.

A skeleton is the material examined, not a component of the profile. Blood groups cannot usually be found from skeletal remains and are not one of the four, and teeth are a source of evidence for age, not a component in their own right.

Answer: D

The key's answer is Both A and C: acid digestion and the Soluene-350 method.

In suspected drowning, diatoms are looked for in bone marrow (usually from the femur) and compared with diatoms in the water. Because their walls are silica, they survive harsh treatment. The classic method is acid digestion, boiling the tissue in concentrated nitric acid (sometimes with sulphuric acid) to destroy organic matter and leave the diatom frustules. Soluene-350, a tissue solubiliser, dissolves the tissue more gently and is the other widely used method.

A sodium sulphate method is not one of the standard diatom extraction procedures, so the option naming the two common methods together is the one the key accepts.

Answer: A

Haase's rule is used to estimate the age of a foetus.

Haase's rule relates crown-heel length to the age of the foetus in lunar months. For the first five months, length in centimetres equals the square of the age in months (3 months gives about 9 cm); after the fifth month, length equals the age in months multiplied by five (7 months gives about 35 cm). Turning the rule round gives the age from a measured foetus.

It does not estimate the height of an adult, which uses long bones and regression formulae, nor race or individual identification.

Answer: A

In a female pelvis the greater sciatic notch is much wider than in males.

The female pelvis is adapted for childbirth, with a broad, shallow pelvic cavity. Its greater sciatic notch is wide and shallow, close to a right angle, while in males it is narrow and deep, about a fish-hook shape. It is one of the most reliable single features for sexing the hip bone, along with the subpubic angle and the preauricular sulcus.

So it is not narrower or equal in width in females, and although there is some overlap, it is a standard sex marker rather than 'very variable'.