B. D. Gupta

A unique trend of murder–suicide in the Jamnagar region of Gujarat, India (A retrospective study of 5 years)

Jamnagar region, Gujarat state, enjoys a relatively low incidence of homicide in India. In the 5 year period from 2000 to 2004, 8 mothers committed 13 murders involving 3 male and 10 female victims and in every case it was followed by suicide of the assailant mothers. During the study the annual incidence of murder-suicide was about 1.8 cases. All the assailants were mothers and the victims were their small children in the age group of 6 months to 7 years. Five incidents took place in rural areas and three in urban areas. It was prevalent only in low socio-economic families. Methods both for killing and suicide were either burning or drowning. All the mothers were legally married and living with the family. Family and family related matters were the main motives for killing. In one case there was history of depression of the mother due to her previous miscarriage. Alcohol consumption or drug abuse was not seen even in a single case. All cases fell in the altruistic category of filicide-suicide.

Death comes through eye: a rare case of electrocution.

Injury and death from electric current although rare, are not uncommon. In majority of the fatalities, death usually results from accidental contact with a live wire, both in industrial and domestic circumstances. The entry wound is usually in the hand or foot, with the exit wound being in the opposite hand or foot touching the earth (or the ground). Rarely, due to a unique position of the body and circumstances, they may be seen on head, face, neck, mouth, lips, body trunk, etc. However, here we present a unique site of electrocution, the eye, which has probably never been reported before. This case was also accidental in nature.

Human epididymis: structural pattern, total length and inner surface area

Introduction The organ epididymis is secured the name considering it functioned as an appendix to the testis; earlier testis was called as didymi. Regarding the length of human epididymis, several values are attributed by different authors. The present study was aimed to find out the pattern, total length and inner surface area of human epididymis. Materials and Methods The study was conducted by employing microsurgical procedures on five testes from unclaimed human dead bodies. Results Caput was formed by few tubes interconnecting at three levels. These tubes led to corpus, which in turn was having more number of tubes interconnecting at different levels. Tubules were many looking like a mesh. United tubes of corpus form the single tube to form cauda. Epididymis length was 30.48 cm. Inner surface area was 818.16 mm2. Conclusions Reported values of others seem to be a modified version from that of animals. Authors believe that organic revolutionary changes in man led to a reduction in the length of epididymis.