Forensic medicine is essentially a visual science. There is no substitute to actual visualization and "hands on" experience. The amount of information that one gets by actually looking at the injuries and perhaps feeling and manipulating them, is phenomenal. Sadly the trend in several centers is to simply watch the postmortem examinations being conducted by others. Many other students - especially those in private medical colleges - don´t even get a chance for that. And the situation is becoming gloomier by day. Recently there has been a great mushrooming of private medical colleges, and at a rough estimate, the number of students passing out from these private medical colleges far exceeds those passing from regular government colleges. No postmortems are conducted in these private medical colleges, so students just tend to cram up forensic medicine books (cheap ones at that!) and get through the examinations. More or less, the same is true for several other professional colleges, such as dental, nursing, physiotherapy, homeopathy, ayurvedic, Siddha and Unani medical Colleges. The students hardly get to see any actual post-mortem examinations, and medico legal training imparted to these students is almost non-existent.
For such students, Interlabs have recently come out with a very good alternative - forensic models. Let me hasten to add that these models do not (and indeed can not) substitute for actual post-mortem demonstrations. At best they are a reasonably good substitute where such examinations are impossible as in the abovementioned circumstances. Even in regular medical colleges, where postmortems are routinely shown to medical students, there is no guarantee that the medical student would get a chance to see all types of cases in the limited time that is available to him. In India for instance, forensic medicine is traditionally taught in the second professional comprising of three semesters (III, IV and V), each comprising of six months. They get to see a maximum of ten postmortems during this period. Needless to say, even in the best equipped centres, the medical students can not be exposed to all necessary forensic pathology. These models would be useful to these medical students too.
These models by Interlabs would prove a good substitute in institutions where facilities of actual postmortem viewing are non-existent or minimal. Even in regular medical colleges, where students do get to see postmortems, they might do well seeing these models, as it is almost impossible to get exposed to all the vast range of postmortem pathology in the short time the student gets to remain with the forensic medicine department...
The models encompass most of the range that we usually see in our postmortem rooms. some of the models that Interlabs have come up with are tattoo-marks over the forearm, tuft of hair, cadaveric spasm showing a razor firmly grasped in hand in a case of suicide, model of marked gaseous swelling of face, eyeballs and tongue producing like frog like appearance, peeling of epidermis with exposure of red brown dermis due to putrefactive hemolysis, types of hymens such as annular, semilunar, fimbriated, imperforate, cribriform, septate, elastic & distensible, showing normal injury at coitus and carunculae myritiforems, bruise on shoulder showing color changes after 4 days, contusions caused by blows from a blunt weapon.(stick), incised wound inflicted with a knife, homicidal multiple incised wound. depth an additional confirmatory features, punctured wound perforating the chest showing both the wound of entrance and the wound of exit, lacerated wounds of fore-arm caused by broken glass pane, axe wound, multiple lacerated wound of scalp, healing of wound at 1 hour, 12 hours, 24 hours, 36 hours, 48 hours, 3-5 days and 3-4 weeks, suicidal wound inflicted by razor on wrist, a dah wound on skull, homicidal multiple knife injuries, ligature mark on the neck in a case of hanging, homicidal throttling, strangulation with nylon rope, drowning with grass firmly grasped in hand, corrugated skin of feet, corrugated skin of hand, model of sodden condition of skin and palmar aspect of fingers and palm of hand in the case of drowning, chocking- homicidal gagging of a old man by cloth, typical breast of a virgin, slightly pendulous breast of a recently married woman, extensive burns from clothes catching fire, scalds from a fall into a cauldron of boiling ghee, burn on the back with a heated metallic ladle, burn on the face from kerosene oil lamp, lesion of hand from contact with a live wire a current of 220 volts, electric burn on leg, degree of burn: 1st. degree to 6th degree (6 models in all), sulphuric acid poisoning showing stains on angles of mouth and chin due to corrosive action of sulphuric acid, poisoning of a mixture of sulphuric and nitric acid showing stains on lip, right angles of mouth, chin due to corrosive action of these acids, nitric acid vitriol age on the body, stomach in poisoning by nitric acid, stomach in poisoning by hydrochloric acid, stomach in poisoning by oxalic acid, arsenic skin complication, stomach in poisoning by potassium cyanide, acetic acid poisoning: stains on the lip and tongue caused by glacial acetic acid, stomach in poisoning by lysol, Lysol burns of the lip running down over the chin on to the neck, suicide by drinking from a cup, copper sulphate poisoning (suicidal) presence in mouth, stomach in poisoning by caustic potash, stomach in poisoning by carbolic acid, mouth and tongue in poisoning by cocaine, stomach poisoning by phosphorus (red & white - 2 models), stomach poisoning by opium, stomach poisoning by alcohol, automobile injuries, fractured and extensive lacerated wound caused by a lorry running over a person lying over the ground, tyre mark of a lorry passed over the skull, model of countercoup lacerations of the brain (a old man fell striking the back of his head on the road after he was struck by an automobile), snake bite - viper (toxic), snake bite - non toxic and death from starvation. Needless to say, this is a breathtaking range by any standards.
