Forensic paper redux

Mike has posted about a recent paper written by Lenore Barbian and me that used the Civil War skeletal collection. Here's the abstract and title page image from the Journal of Forensic Sciences.

This paper reports on the gross appearance of the initial osseous response following cranial gunshot wounds. A total of 127 adult crania and cranial sections were analyzed for four types of bone response: osteoblastic, osteoclastic, line of demarcation, and sequestration. In general, no osteoblastic or osteoclastic response was noted during the first week. This response was followed by an increasing prevalence of expression after this time. By the sixth week postfracture both osteoclastic and osteoblastic activity was scored for 100% of the sample. Further, our observations suggest that the line of demarcation may establish the boundary between the living bone and bone not surviving the fracture. Sequestration appears to be a long-term event and was scored as present well past the eighth week of healing. The osseous expression of infection following fracture was also considered.

For those not versed in the forensic anthropological lexicon, let me decipher it for you. The Civil War skeletal collection is unique in many ways, but for this study it was the documented date of injury and date of death that allowed us to determine the time elapsed following injury. We examined skull sections of 127 Civil War soldiers looking at the way in which the fractured bone responds to injury over time-- and this is the only collection in the world where this could be done.

Forensic anthropologists can use the information in this study when they have a case that could involve survival after a traumatic injury. Some of the data may also be useful in looking at child abuse cases or human rights abuse cases.