Freshwater bacterioplankton cultured from liver, kidney and lungs of a decomposed cadaver retrieved from a sandy seashore: Possibility of drowning in a river and then floating out to sea

Kakizaki, Eiji; Kozawa, Shuji; Matsuda, Hirokazu; Muraoka, Eri; Uchiyama, Taketo; Sakai, Masahiro; Yukawa, Nobuhiro

doi:10.1016/j.legalmed.2010.03.008

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Volume 12, Issue 4 , Pages 195-199, July 2010

Freshwater bacterioplankton cultured from liver, kidney and lungs of a decomposed cadaver retrieved from a sandy seashore: Possibility of drowning in a river and then floating out to sea☆

Eiji Kakizaki
- Section of Legal Medicine, Department of Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Miyazaki, 5200 Kihara, Kiyotake-cho, Miyazaki 889-1692, Japan
- Corresponding author. Tel.: +81 985 85 0991; fax: +81 985 85 6406.
Shuji Kozawa
- Section of Legal Medicine, Department of Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Miyazaki, 5200 Kihara, Kiyotake-cho, Miyazaki 889-1692, Japan
Hirokazu Matsuda
- Division of Medical Technology, Institute of Health Science, Junshin Junior College, 1-1-1 Chikushigaoka, Minami-ku, Fukuoka 815-8510, Japan
Eri Muraoka
- Section of Legal Medicine, Department of Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Miyazaki, 5200 Kihara, Kiyotake-cho, Miyazaki 889-1692, Japan
Taketo Uchiyama
- Section of Legal Medicine, Department of Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Miyazaki, 5200 Kihara, Kiyotake-cho, Miyazaki 889-1692, Japan
- Criminal Investigation Laboratory, Miyazaki Prefectural Police, 1-8-28 Asahi, Miyazaki-shi, Miyazaki 880-8509, Japan
Masahiro Sakai
- Department of Biochemistry and Applied Biosciences, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Miyazaki, 1-1 Gakuenkibanadai-Nishi, Miyazaki-shi, Miyazaki 889-2192, Japan
Nobuhiro Yukawa
- Section of Legal Medicine, Department of Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Miyazaki, 5200 Kihara, Kiyotake-cho, Miyazaki 889-1692, Japan

Received 24 November 2009; received in revised form 26 March 2010; accepted 26 March 2010. published online 06 May 2010.

Abstract

A decomposed female body with an open abdomen and pleural cavity washed up on a beach after a powerful typhoon. Autopsy findings could not determine the cause of death because of leaching and putrefaction. Numbers and types of diatoms in organs overall, suggested the aspiration of fresh or brackish water with low salinity. However, this could not be confirmed because of contamination via the open cavities. We simultaneously investigated the presence of bacterioplankton in liver, kidney and lung homogenates using a modification of our reported bacteriological method. The freshwater bacterioplankton Plesiomonas shigelloides was identified in each of these organs, but marine bacterioplankton were undetectable despite the circumstances under which the body was discovered. The presence of freshwater bacterioplankton reinforced the results of the diatom test, and we concluded that this victim had died of drowning in fresh or brackish water with low salinity.

Keywords: Drowning, Bacteria, Diatom, Marine environment, Brackish water, Freshwater