The case of the Case

         Rarely anyone takes forensic medicine as a post-graduate subject by choice in this country. Most of the doctors who have completed their M.B.B.S. gets into this course to just get an MD degree, as they do not have a better choice. But for me the case was different. I loved Forensic Medicine and Toxicology (FMT), because from my child-hood days I read a lot of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot stories, and wanted to be a great detective and solve crime at the scene. Well, through this subject my child-hood dream had come true. I thought I could bring a change in the way the doctors and people thought of those who dealt with forensic medicine. The layman thought us to be Death’s Doctor, while doctors of other specialties thought us to be stupid not to get an alternative clinical branch. Maybe with my conquest, FMT would become a favourite for many. Working in the most prestigious institute of the country, I could develop my own novel methods.

    I had seen in my graduation days of M.B.B.S., one of my batch-mates, collapse after seeing a live demonstration of an autopsy. And many of them had swooned at the first sight of the corpse. It required nerves of steel to stay on the pitch and perform the autopsy. And definitely FMT was not a subject for the weak-hearted. I prided in my nerves and caliber.

       During my post-graduate training period, I had to see several cases every day. People who were murdered, sexually assaulted, those who had committed suicide formed the major part of the cases. We had to work out to find the cause of death, and give our medical report. The problem was that there were a huge load of cases, and giving time to individual case was a matter of concern for the pending cases. So no matter what, we would just work out like mechanical robots, give the first-hand information that came to our mind and go for the next case. To investigate, research and develop novel methods was out of the question. And to make matters worse we had to give testimony in the court. Well, giving testimony isn’t bad if it were for once or twice; the judicial system of the nation is so corrupt in functioning that brainless idiots who doesn’t know how peahens begets chicks becomes judges…what can we expect from them? Quick judgement? Ha! That’s a myth. They keep on forwarding the cases, from one date to another, that any lay-man of sense would have done better. They teach in the Obstetrics and Gynecology department that when you can’t do anything, it is better to wait and watch. So these wise judges must have learnt those words of wisdom from some of our folk and applied on themselves. Truth would be eventually revealed, so why use the brain!

People who lack sense, lack the importance of time, especially a doctor’s time. So if the court calls you, and you take three hours of heavy traffic journey and reach the grand palace of someone who summoned you, only to find the case has been postponed to a future date, and you have to only sign the attendance…..Only God help the destitute! I had seen a colleague of mine who hadn’t signed (in his first visit) even though he had been to the court. And what? A subpoena had come in his name requiring attendance, or he would be sent an arrest warrant for the contempt of the court. So the lesson we all learnt was, the signature on the attendance form was the most necessary thing than all the evidence to be produced in a court.

   We have different methods of performing autopsy and it all depends on the cause and manner of death. For example in hanging, the neck region (where the noose is ligated) is the last to be dissected and the knot is left intact. We usually give I or Y shaped incision to enter the thorax and abdomen, wherein the viscera (abdominal organs) are removed by Virchow, Rokitansky, Ghon, or Letulle technique. Usually we use Virchow’s technique, where organs are removed one by one.

  In poisoning cases we have to take the sample of the gut content and preserve a part of the viscera. While in drowning cases, we have to cut the lungs and perform hydrostatic test (to see if cut pieces of lungs float in water or not) and see if it was death before drowning or after drowning.

   So during the initial days, it was quite interesting to see a case and work on it. But with time as the work load increased and we couldn’t do much research in our work, it became more of a routine hectic work. So a subject which I loved and was passionate about became just another of those subjects that I studied in the medical science, and made me indifferent towards my cases and my subject.

  It was one of those usual days, and I had a case before me. An almost charred corpse. Identification of the corpse was difficult. So we had to resort to our forensic methods. It was probably a case of dowry death. Dowry deaths are frequent in this country. Though with time the mentality of the population is changing, but then not all have changed, and dowry related deaths will still be prevalent for some more decades. The case is investigated by a magistrate, to show that it is important; but honestly I feel the results are similar to police inquest. The magistrate do not trusts the cops in this matter because of the large number of corrupt and fallacious reports.

I identified it to be a woman in her late twenties, and the lady had been burnt alive with kerosene oil spilled on her. I decided to write down my report. But somehow I felt uneasy. My instinct told me something was not going well. The inner gut feeling, you know. So I went to examine the corpse again. I felt it to be striking semblance to someone I knew and loved.

     Ours had been a tragic love story. I wasn’t well established then, and due to difference in one of the greatest social barrier in this country which we inherit as soon as we are born, our parents hadn’t agreed. She was married off to some guy, while I continued my carrier as a doctor having all my hopes shattered.

   There were marks of wire on her wrist. Probably she had been tied. Instinctively, I looked at her hand. She had a ring. And what I feared had come true. I had given her a ring during our days of romance with the initials of our name engraved. I hate to admit it, I wept on seeing the same ring blackened and stuck on her finger. She had kept the souvenir of my love to the end of her life.

My whole body shook. What I had considered every time just another case, another hour of tedious labour……. I realized was a whole life to someone. And in this Case it was to me!