Human Male Skull with a 32-caliber Gunshot Wound BC-152
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Human male skull with large caliber bullet wound to head. European male, 25 years of age, modern specimen, North America. Cast by us from an original skull that is in a North American medical school forensic osteology teaching collection. The appearance of projectile damage to bone is crucial to the differentiation of "entrance" and "exit" wounds. Typically, as a projectile like a bullet passes through a plate of bone (like that of the neurocranium), fragments of the bone follow. As such, there is a characteristic beveling (or open fanning) of the bone in the direction of projectile motion. Although not adequately visualized on the entrance wound of this specimen (without removing the calvarium), this phenomenon is beautifully illustrated in the exit wound of the left lateral occipital bone. Note also the radiating simple linear fracture which progresses obliquely and laterally away from the exit wound. Interestingly, the left orbital plate is not intact. This is important to recognize and consider for two reasons. Firstly, damage to bones in this region may be due to direct contact with the bullet, or the forces of gases expelled from the muzzle of a gun in hard contact with the head. Secondly, it may not be due to these factors at all, and may represent the violent secondary contact of the frontal lobes of the brain, thrust against this bony ridge when the brain is expanded and compressed by forces created with the rapid passage of a projectile through brain tissue. Our Bone Clones® forensic skull captures all the osteological and forensic details of the original.

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