Medical Jurisprudence And Toxicology

30

MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE

The crowns of the temporary teeth are of a white china-like colour and
are marked with a ridge or thick edge at their junction with the fangs;
while the crowns of the permanent teeth are ivory white and have no ridge.
The anterior temporary teeth are vertical, and the permanent teeth are
usually inclined a little forward.

Height and Weight.—A full-term child at birth is, on an average, 19 to
20 inches in length and 6 to 7 pounds in weight. It is generally 24 inches in
length at the age of the sixth month and 27 inches at the end of the first
year. At the end of the fourth year it is, on an average, double its length
at birth. If the health and nutrition are maintained, the child gains in
weight nearly one pound a month during the first year, so that it is generally
double its birth-weight at the end of the fifth month, and treble its birth-
weight at the end of the first year. But the progressive increase in height
and weight according to age varies so greatly in individuals that it cannot
be depended upon in estimating age in medico-legal cases.

Ossification of Bones.—This sign is helpful for determining age until
ossification is completed, for skiagraphy has now made it possible to deter-
mine even in living persons the extent of ossification, and the union of
epiphyses in bones. Owing to the variations in climatic, dietetic, hereditary
and other factors affecting the people of the different provinces of India it
cannot be reasonably expected to formulate a uniform standard for the
determination of the age of the union of epiphyses for the whole of India.
However, from investigations carried out in certain provinces it has been
concluded that the age at which the union of epiphyses takes place in Indians
is about 2 to 3 years in advance of the age incidence in Europeans and that
the epiphysial union occurs in females somewhat earlier than in males.

Fig. 7.—X-Ray photograph of the
elbow of a boy, aged 15 years and
8 months: Epicondyles not united
with the lower end of the hume-
rus and olecranon not united with
the body of the ulna.

Fig. 8.—-X-Ray photograph of the
elbow of a girl, aged 15 years and
10 months: Epicondyles united
with the lower end of the hume-
rus but the olecranon is not
united with the body of the ulna.