Africa and indeed Nigeria are blessed with abundant human and material resources: that is a fact. That we are underachieving and underdeveloped is a settled matter and I will not be discussing that point here. What is most concerning is the magnitude of abuse of humans and other resources that we have been blessed with to improve our lives. We the residents of this frontier called Nigeria (and Africa) are the principal perpetrators of such abuses against our fellow human beings and it has been on-going for millennia.
A couple of weeks ago, we discussed abuse in its various forms. I pointed out then that abuse can result into physical, psychological, financial injuries or death of the victims. Abuse is not the only cause of deaths as we all know. Deaths can result from accidents, very often as a result of one person’s negligence or the other. There is no doubt that deaths of anyone—young or old—very frequently results from natural causes such as definite disease states such as cancer.
In the elderly, death may come due to old age. Death may therefore not be due to natural causes. Death that is questionable may be as a consequence of a deliberate act of harm (abuse) such as beating a person to death, poisoning, burning or deprivation of necessaries. Death may also result from negligence (act of not paying due care and attention to what one is doing or a person is not carrying out his/her duty to the standard expected of that individual and position that the person occupies).
Now, it’s the subject of such questionable deaths and injuries that we shall explore in this article. In medical professional circle and in law, the medico-legal examination of such questionable deaths is carried out by a Coroner.
Coroner cases are integral part of forensic medicine. It’s a very important aspect of every decent society to question and find the root causes of what caused the death or injury of a member of the society that we all belong to.
We will examine the nature of forensic medicine and how it applies to you and the society that we live in. We will also take a look at how you and your family can benefit from forensic medical work. In addition, we will examine the reasons why forensic examination is almost a taboo or why the practice of forensic medicine suffers from a high resistance in Nigeria. First, the scope of forensic medicine and the law.
Let us deal with the word: “Coroner”: The history of coroner and indeed the name “coroner” (from Crown) came from the English in the 11th Century England. The principal reason for establishing coroner is simply to protect the interest of the Crown in Criminal Proceedings. The coroner was formally established in England by Article 20 of the “Articles of Eyre” in September 1194 to “keep the pleas of the Crown”) from which the word “coroner” is derived. In those days, it was the duty (as its now) of the local county official to defend and protect the interest of the Crown in courts. By the year 1215 when the Magna Carta (that brought much human rights to the world as we now know it) came into being, the word “coroner” had been enshrined in law.
Ultimately, it became established that “the person who found a body from a death thought sudden or unnatural was required to raise the “hue and cry” and to notify the coroner” and hence the modern function and meaning of a coroner . Therefore, coroner is a person whose standard role is to confirm and certify the death of an individual within a jurisdiction (say in Lagos State or Nigeria).
With this in mind, we can now look at what is “forensic medicine”. “The application of medical knowledge to the investigation of crime, particularly in establishing the causes of injury or death is called forensic medicine.
The meeting point of Forensic Medicine and Coroner: Coroner and forensic medicine indeed have a meeting point at what is called autopsy: which means examination of the dead to find the cause of death. To use the words of Encyclopedia Britannica, the primary tool of forensic medicine has always been the autopsy.
Frequently used for identification of the dead, autopsies may also be conducted to determine the cause of death. In cases of death caused by a weapon, for example, the forensic pathologist ( a medical doctor)—by examining the wound—can often provide detailed information about the type of weapon used as well as important contextual information. (In a death by gunshot, for example, he can determine with reasonable accuracy the range and angle of fire.)
Forensic medicine is a major factor in the identification of victims of disaster, such as landslide or plane crash. In cause-of-death determinations, forensic pathologists can also significantly affect the outcome of trials dealing with insurance and inheritance.
Therefore, a common but extremely powerful tool that exposes criminality is autopsy which in the hand of a coroner can bring justice to victims even if dead. Forensic medicine as a whole can bring justice and restitution to the living injured.
Next week, we shall examine coroner in more details.
