CHY 183 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Homicide, Ethylene Glycol, Life Insurance
Document Summary
* presented with body fluids and organs and is requested to examine them for drugs and poisons; the toxicologist must use general screening procedures with the hope of narrowing possible causes of death to one. * work in crime labs and medical examiners offices as well as hospital labs and health facilities to identify drug overdoses. * the toxicologist is not dealing with drugs at the concentration levels found in powders and pills, having been distributed through the body; few substances enter and leave the body in the same chemical state. * when the toxicologist has done the testing procedures they must assess the toxicity of the drug or poison. * the forensic toxicologist must devise an analytical scheme that will detect, isolate and identify drug substances once the drug has been extracted from the fluids, tissues and organs. * drug extraction is based on a large number of drugs being acidic (lsd, aspirin) or basic (cocaine, nicotine; nitrogen)
