Unveiling the Secrets of the Grave: The Power and Process of Exhumation in Modern Medicine

Exhumation:

                     Exhumation may be defined as authorized digging out of already buried dead body from the grave for doing autopsy.

Causes of Exhumation:

         First autopsy & Second autopsy

PROCEDURE OF EXHUMATION:

1. A written order from a 1st class magistrate.
2. Done in daylight particularly in morning
3. Magistrate and doctor should present at the sight and should stay at place opposite to the air flow
4. The grave should be identified by the relatives of the deceased as well as by the in-charge of the graveyard
5. Then the grave should be curtained by cloth or polyethane
6. Soil from above, below and sides of the coffin should be preserved in a glass jar.
7. Then see the position and condition of the dead body within the grave and take a photograph.
8. Body is shifted carefully on to a plank or sheet and by covering with this sheet it should be sent to the morgue
9. Magistrate inquest is necessary here
10. If second autopsy, autopsy should be done through a medical board.

INDICATION OF EXHUMATION:

1. For second autopsy
2. Burial without autopsy
3. Partial identification
4. Follwing issue can be determined long after death-
5. Metalic poisoning
6. Fracture Bone.
7. Bullet traberse bone
8. Head injury
9. Old bloodstain on the bone
10. Old blood stain
11. If saponified, all type of injury could be detected