Forensic Medicine and Anthropology Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The female pelvic cavity is shorter, more cylindrical and more spacious.

The female pelvis is adapted for childbirth. Its cavity is wide and shallow, roughly cylindrical, with a round inlet, a wide subpubic angle and a broad sciatic notch, which is why the pelvis is the most reliable bone for sexing a skeleton.

A longer, conical (funnel-shaped) and less spacious cavity is the male pattern, so the options describing a longer or conical, less spacious cavity describe the male pelvis.

Answer: D

The key gives 22 days.

The house fly, Musca domestica, passes through egg, larva, pupa and adult, and the length of the cycle depends strongly on temperature: it is a week or so in hot weather and much longer in the cold. That is why the question asks about the winter season, and why the shortest options of 5 and 10 days, which belong to warm conditions, do not suit it.

I could not find a source that states 22 days for the winter cycle, or one that gives another figure for it, so the choice between 15 and 22 days rests on the University's key. A longer winter cycle fits what is known about temperature and development.

Answer: B

The first permanent tooth to emerge is the first molar.

The first permanent molars erupt at about 6 years of age, behind the last milk teeth, without replacing any of them, which is why they are called the six-year molars. They are used in age estimation of children.

The maxillary central incisor erupts at about 7-8 years, the mandibular lateral incisor at about 7-8 years and the maxillary canine at about 11-12 years, all later than the first molar.

Answer: C

The hair of the human foetus is lanugo hair (spelt 'Lenugo' in the paper).

Lanugo is the fine, soft, unpigmented hair that covers the foetus from about the fifth month of intrauterine life. It is mostly shed before birth, so its presence and extent help estimate the maturity of a foetus in medico-legal work.

Vellus hair is the short fine hair that replaces lanugo after birth over most of the body, and terminal hair is the coarse pigmented hair of the scalp, eyebrows and, after puberty, the axilla and pubis. Neither is the foetal hair type.

Answer: A

The bone ends that ossify from secondary centres are the epiphyses.

A long bone ossifies from a primary centre in the shaft (diaphysis) before birth and from secondary centres in its ends (epiphyses) after birth. The epiphyses fuse with the shaft at known ages, which makes them the basis of age estimation from bones and X-rays.

The diaphysis is the shaft formed from the primary centre. The metaphysis is the growing zone of the shaft next to the epiphyseal plate, and the periosteum is the membrane that covers the bone, not a part that ossifies from a centre.

Answer: C

Tache noire refers to black spots on the sclera.

When the eyelids stay open after death, the exposed parts of the sclera on either side of the cornea dry out. Within a few hours they form brownish-black triangular or oval patches called tache noire (French for 'black spot'), a postmortem change that helps in estimating the time since death.

Post-mortem staining is livor mortis (hypostasis). Flaccidity of the eyeball follows the fall in intraocular tension after death, and maggot growth is a later sign of decomposition used in forensic entomology.

Answer: B

The correct match is a-iii, b-i, c-iv, d-ii.

• Bestiality: sexual intercourse with animals.
• Coprolalia: the use of obscene words for sexual excitement, as in obscene telephone calls.
• Gerontophilia: sexual attraction to old people.
• Coprophilia: sexual arousal by faeces (printed 'faces').

Each term carries its clue in its root: kopros is Greek for dung and lalia for speech, geron for old man. The other options cross these pairings and so fail on at least two items.

Answer: C

Postmortem lividity does not help to determine the motive of death.

Lividity (livor mortis) is the purple discolouration of dependent parts as blood settles under gravity after death. It helps in three ways named in the options:

• time of death: it appears in about 1-2 hours and becomes fixed in about 6-8 hours;
• position of the body: it forms on the lowest parts, and lividity in non-dependent parts shows the body was moved;
• cause of death: its colour can be a clue, cherry red in carbon monoxide poisoning or brownish in nitrite poisoning.

Motive is a question about why a person was killed, which no physical postmortem change can reveal.

Answer: C

Anoxic anoxia is produced by all except cyanide poisoning.

Anoxic anoxia means too little oxygen reaches the blood in the lungs. Drowning (water fills the airways), being trapped in a closed almirah (the oxygen in the confined air is used up) and strangulation (the airway is compressed) all prevent oxygen from reaching the blood.

Cyanide works differently. The blood is well oxygenated, but cyanide inhibits cytochrome oxidase so the tissues cannot use the oxygen. This is histotoxic anoxia, which is why the venous blood of cyanide victims stays bright red.

Answer: A

A collection of blood in the subcutaneous tissue is a bruise (contusion).

Blunt force ruptures small blood vessels under intact skin, and blood escapes into the subcutaneous tissues. The colour changes over the following days (red, blue, green, yellow) as haemoglobin breaks down, which helps estimate the age of an injury.

Stab, lacerated and chop wounds all break the skin. A stab wound is made by a pointed weapon and is deeper than it is long; a laceration is a tear of skin by blunt force; a chop wound is made by a heavy sharp-edged weapon such as an axe. None is a collection of blood under unbroken skin.