Medical science is mostly associated
with saving lives and serving mankind. Doctors are compared to ‘Gods’ when they
successfully save a patient, or to the heartless mythological demons when they
fail to do so. But when med students walk into the department of Forensic
medicine and Toxicology (FMT) for the first time they realize, there’s more to
the medical profession than just this. Being a doctor is also about helping to
find out who caused a premature end of a life, about helping rape victims seek
justice for themselves, about knowing the best methods for a successful suicide
if the need ever arises. Finally, and most importantly, it is about learning
medical ethics and several sections of the Indian Penal Code by heart so that they
can save their backs and that of their colleagues if they are ever accused of
medical negligence.
The forensic medicine department,
which is attached to the mortuary and department of anatomy in most medical
colleges is definitely a place that gives sinister vibes. It is a place which always
demands a mask, even without COVID, unless one is completely desensitized to
the gut-wrenching stench over there. The large number of dead bodies coming in
and out with occasional mutilated, beheaded, or rotten ones, the cold mortuary,
the damp corridors with old, flickering tube lights- everything sets the mood
for a spine-chilling horror movie. It happens many a times that while walking
down the corridor, or while entering the class one has a sudden eye contact
with a dead person, only to realize that his head is not attached to his body
after all!
One learns many things in FMT- starting
from reporting rape cases, and injuries to identifying snakes and poisons. One
learns to answer questions like “What are the different ways to kill or injure
a person using this bamboo stick?” One
learns to identify the age of wounds, the signs of death, or the age and sex of
a person from their bones. But after seeing so many weapons one wonders, “Which
is the weapon which can hurt the most?” The answer which comes out remains the
same with or without learning FMT: WORDS. Weapons kill only once while words can
kill a thousand times.
Autopsy is a very important part of
FMT and watching an autopsy for the first time is an experience to remember
throughout life. Even for people who are accustomed to seeing surgeries on live
people, an autopsy seems to be a merciless procedure. While for live people we
take care not to injure the vital organs and not to cause much bleeding, the
dead seem to be no more than animal carcasses to the autopsy surgeons. They
drive chisel into the bones and use their hammers to break open the skull or
other bones of the dead body. In one swift movement they pull out the internal
organs and cut them open to check for abnormalities.
As one might infer, autopsy is not a procedure
for the weak hearted. The question that might arise is, ’Isn’t it inhuman to
cut open a departed person like that?’ The answer to this question lies within
the walls of a courtroom where the evidences from autopsy bring justice to the
dead or within the walls of the medical college classrooms where the evidences
from this procedure helps to uncover the pathology of diseases.
There are many moments when FMT
induces fear of grosses us out- it might be while holding a fetal skull for the
first time or while doing classes on paraphilias. But it is a beautiful subject.
It gives voice to the departed, which uncovers the truths our dear ones wanted
to tell us before dying but could not, which saves the victim and punishes the
accused and warns us against the evils of human kind. It is the subject that
makes us stand face to face with the truth, and as the saying goes: “Telling
the truth is a beautiful act even if the truth itself is ugly.”
Photo courtesy- Shuvojyoti Rakshit
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