ADVANCED FORENSIC BIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY

Advanced Forensic Biology and Pathology



Advanced Forensic Biology and Pathology

PART I

What is death and at what point someone may be called dead.

Medical, Biological and Ethical point of View

In medical and biological point of view, death is permanent failure of various systems of body functions in which a body of a person does not move and cannot respond. It is the lack of vital body functions like, functions of respiration, circulation, function of brain and various other vital organs that ensures the activities in an individual. This is also the definition that was generally defined by the traditional medical professionals and biologists but after the advancements in the field of medicine this concept became very difficult to define. The main reason for this difficulty and confusion is that when there is failure in any of such vital functions of the body, with the advance technology, such people can be provided with the medical facilities that generate breathing and heartbeat when such vital function does not work. In the traditional concept, when any vital organ lost its working, that person is considered as the dead. In modern time there are various facilities available to ensure that these people are not dead and it is just a temporary issue even if the most vital organ of the body, such as heart stops functioning even then the person is not dead and with the process of heart transplant that person can survive. There is another important point to discuss that if the death in medical terminology is defined as the lack of function of a heart, then in the case of heart transplant how can a heart of dead person begins proper function in a body of another person and keep him alive. Therefore, in the medical terminology, to avoid the confusion of defining the death it is consider as the stage where all the body functions cease and all the organs stops working. This most prominently include the heartbeat, brain function and respiration. Death has different meanings in different ideologies and concepts. In religion it is the separation of soul from the human body. Religious scholars do not agree with the concept of brain death and death concept of death in the medical terminologies. There is different concept of death in the religious and ethical point of view. It is totally unethical to call a missing person or a person in unconscious state as dead. This creates the issue of defining the death in different perspectives.

Legal and Forensic Point of View

Defining death in the field of law and forensic is also a very central issue and there are different concepts associated with it. There are various issues in the law that requires proper and close study to address this concern. There are some points where the legal definition of death contradicts with the medical definition of death. It is not only an issue in defining the death but the issue in defining the state of death in the field ...