Bruising encounters in veterinary forensics

摘要

Any veterinary pathologist who routinely examines wildlife carcasses collected from the field has probably observed areas of discoloration on the carcass which resemble bruising. The question always is, does this change truly represent trauma or is it simply artefactual? In the practice of human forensic medicine, pseudo bruising has long been recognized (Knight, 1991, Vanezis, 2001, Saukko and Knight, 2004, Bockholdt et al., 2005 and Pollanen et al., 2009), with causes including the misinterpretation of post-mortem decomposition, lividity (i.e. post-mortem hypostasis), actual post-mortem trauma to the body, and even the handling of tissues during autopsy. In addition, freezing and thawing of a body can contribute additional artefacts which may contribute to, or be mistaken for, ante-mortem, trauma-induced lesions.