Photographic superimposition is a technique used for identification purposes in forensic practice. Skulls of skeletanised bodies, mass graves and putrefied bodies could be subjected to photographic superimposition with an ante-mortem photograph of the suspected victim with a life size photograph of the skull tested. An opinion regarding the identity would be made to courts based on superimposing anatomical landmarks and facial anthropometry. In order to facilitate photographic superimposition a skull holder is required with the facility of maintaining differential positions of the face and the skull to suit the view and the angle of the photograph to be superimposed. The aim of this project was to design and construct a low cost adjustable skull holder for purposes of forensic superimposition.

Sinhala and Tamil are the two official languages in Sri Lanka and are also the media of instruction in the primary and secondary state sector schools, up to year 2003, - English being taught as a second language. In the University system, especially in the professional courses of study, English is the medium of instruction. Undergraduates having received secondary education in the mother tongue are now faced with the arduous task of acquiring and mentally separating two language codes with many divergent, overlapping, and intersecting functions, meanings, and forms.

Periodontal Disease is the general term used to denote inflammatory disease of the periodontium viz alveolar bone, cementum, gingiva and periodontal ligament. Studies carried out in different countries reveal that periodontal disease is a common disease among animals and that it is the leading cause for the mortality of teeth.

Many government medical officers in Sri Lan ka are expected by law to perform all medico-legal duties even though they may not get a practical exposure of all medico-legal functions in their undergraduate curriculum. District Medical Officer (DMO), Medical Officer In Charge (MO-IC), MO-Medico Legal are some non specialist positions in the Ministry of Health that perform med ico-legal functions. There are no formal training provided to these officers to perform medico-legal funct ions other than what they learnt in the undergraduate curriculum (Chandrasiri , 2002; Gooneratne and Edussuriya, 2007). There have been no studies to identify the varying medico-legal functions performed by non specialist medical officers in Sri Lanka. Therefore th is study was designed to understand the varying types, nature and extent of medicolegal duties non specialist medical officers perform in Sri Lanka and their training needs.

In forensic practice, "Identification", is a major concern. This process involves the identification of both victim and the wrongdoer. Identification of the victim is important for reasons such as, obtaining a death certificate, legal disposal of the body and as part of the investigatory process of solving a crime. In addition, identification of the victim often leads to identification of the wrongdoer. Identification of a dead victim is not difficult when external features are intact, especially, the facial features. However with time, due to degradation or as a result of deliberate effect of crime, definitive features of identification of a victim get distorted. In such situations other scientific methods are employed to establish identity. While DNA technology being the method of choice at present, due to high costs incurred, it is not possible to use this technique to all routine cases. In this presentation a case study is illustrated to recognize the technique of photographic superimposition as a method of identification.

Time Since Death (TSD) is a crucial issue in medicolegal work as it provides a mean to estimate the time at the moment of death.