Toxicology is a multidisciplinary study of poisons, aimed to correlate the quantitative and qualitative relationships between poisons and their physiological and behavioural effects in living systems. Other key aspects of toxicology focus on elucidation of the mechanisms of action of poisons and development of remedies and treatment plans for associated toxic effects. In these endeavours, Mass ...

Since alcohol is a general central nervous system depressant, it affects the motor and cognitive performance. Alcohol abuse is a major cause of medical and social problems. Additionally, to determine cause of death in legal medicine centers, alcohol analysis is the most frequently performed test in forensic toxicology laboratories. Accurate interpretation of ethanol concentration at the time...

Existing proficiency-testing (PT) programs do not address the complexity of postmortem forensic toxicology. These programs do not include decomposed samples and solid tissues. Therefore, the Federal Aviation Administration in July 1991 started such a needed PT program. This program is used to: (i) professionally develop and maintain technical currency on a voluntary, interlaboratory, and self-e...

The increasing role of hair analysis in forensic toxicological investigations principally owes to recent improvements of mass spectrometric instrumentation. Research achievements during the last 6 years in this distinctive application area of analytical toxicology are reviewed. The earlier state of the art of hair analysis was comprehensively covered by a dedicated book (Kintz, 2007a. Analytica...

Appropriate selection, sampling and proper storage of biological evidence are important, yet sometimes overlooked, steps in forensic toxicology. These factors, in combination with drug stability, can profoundly impact the interpretation of results and the outcome of forensic casework. Criteria surrounding each of these are presented and discussed in the material that follows. Further reference ...

although death is a gradual process, sometimes sudden death occurs in a fraction of a minute or seconds. here we report a 49-year-old man without any underlying disease, which has instantly died in an accident scene due to compression of neck critical elements by a three-point seat belt. the examination of the body and the results of the autopsy, toxicology and pathology tests are described fro...