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Abstract
An important and often one of the most difficult tasks of a forensic pathologist is the investigation of the cause of death. Many rapid deaths of medicolegal importance are fundamentally anoxic deaths, and for practical purposes such deaths may be classified by the manner in which the anoxia is initiated; deaths initiated by defective oxygenation of the blood in the lung (anoxic anoxia) as from mechanical interference with the passage of air into or down the respiratory tract (strangulation, hanging, choking and drowning); deaths initiated by reduced oxygen carrying capacity of the blood (anaemic anoxia) as in cases of acute carbon monoxide poisoning and acute heamorrhage; deaths initiated by a depression of the oxidative processes in the tissues (histotoxic anoxia) as in acute cyanide poisoning. Medicolegally, mechanical violent asphyxia means the suspension of respiration which results from mechanical interference of respiratory mechanism due to violence. For many years, the autopsy diagnosis of an asphyxial death was made by reference to a set of findings that have come to be known as classic signs of asphyxia. Unfortunately, it is now clear that most of these signs are so non-specific, that little reliance can be placed on them in the absence of other confirmatory evidence.