A concise history of forensic medicine in Czech Republic.

This paper presents the most important historical facts about all forensic medicine workplaces in the Czech Republic since the beginning till present day, including a perspective on how to establish a new one. Each of the University Forensic Medicine Institutes or district Departments is covered by at least one author. The oldest institute is in Prague and in Brno, the youngest is in Pardubice.

[Taxus baccata poisoning].

Common yew poisoning occurs by per oral application of needles or extracts of needles usually. The determination of the cause of death is more difficult in the latter case. In our article, we advise of circumstances which could be helpful in diagnostic.

[3,5-dimethoxyfenol--marker intoxication with Taxus baccata].

Autopsy findings of fatal intoxication with yew (Taxus baccata) are nonspecific. A presence of plant residues in the digestive tract can signalize yew intoxication. If yew decoction is consumed, plant residues are not found.

Correlation of ultrastructural changes of endothelial cells and astrocytes occurring during blood brain barrier damage after traumatic brain injury with biochemical markers of BBB leakage and inflammatory response.

Focal cerebral contusion can be dynamic and expansive. It has been proved that subsequent expansive contusion is caused by brain parenchyma damage, especially BBB damage. We investigated a group of patients with traumatic brain injury.

[Evaluation of relevance in concussion and damage of health by monitoring of neuron specific enolase and S-100b protein].

Introduction: Proteins released to the circulation from affected glial (neuron specific enolasis, NSE) or ganglial cells (S-100b protein) during traumatic brain injury might be used in diagnosis of traumatic brain injury in cases with negative finding on computer tomography scan (concussion) or in patients where the serious clinical status does not corresponde with mild changes on CT scan (diffuse axonal injury, DAI). Classification of DAI according Gennarelli considered the concussion as lower degree of DAI.

Materials And Method: 15 patients were divided into group I of mild conccussion (n=3) with 1-day duration of hospitalisation, group II of serious concussion (n=4) with more days duration of hospitalisation with negative findings on CT scan and group III of patients with diagnosis of DAI (n=8).