The study aimed to determine the influence of the levels of education among people that committed suicide by the use of chemical substances. Data were collected from 2 groups of subjects investigated at the Institute of Legal Medicine in Cluj-Napoca, between January 2012 and December 2016. The first group consisted of 20 deceased persons that committed suicide by chemical substances and the second group consisted of 13 persons that attempted suicide by chemical substances. We investigated the following data: gender, age and type of toxic substance, level of education, field of study, existence of mental illness or other attempts. Age was statistically significantly higher in successful suicides versus suicides attempts. The rest of the variables did not differ statistically significantly between groups, although a higher percentage of subjects with psychiatric illness were observed in the completed suicides group. Also, a higher percentage of subjects who attempted to commit suicide with combination of alcohol and other chemical substances were observed, without achieving statistical significance. We also analyzed the differences within the group with completed suicide subjects from the point of view of their studies. Although we did not get a statistical significance because of the low number of subjects, there were a few associations that slightly exceeded the statistical significance threshold. Thus, those without higher education have used alcohol more frequently in combination with medication, and those with higher education have preferred medication alone. The obtained results may have implications for the targeted prevention of suicides by chemical substances.

In the heavy and light industry, the food and pharmaceutical industry, there are chemicals that contain metals with high toxic potential. Toxicity of metals is due to the harmful effect in certain forms and doses. Some metals become toxic when they form soluble compounds or in a certain chemical structure at certain doses (eg lead, mercury and candium). Not only heavy metals are toxic metals, there are also light metals that can become toxic, some of which are essential elements (iron, selenium, copper, chromium, zinc) and metals used therapeutically in medicine (aluminum, bismuth, gold, gallium, lithium and silver) may have negative effects when administered in large quantities or the elimination from the human body is deficient. Metal poisoning occurs through nutrition, medication, environmental factors. Most professional pollutants with intraoral manifestations appear in the heavy industry. The oral cavity is an entry gate for various toxic pathogens, so intoxications can be detected early due to the manifestations inside the mouth.

Carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen cyanide (HCN) are two common toxic products of combustion. HCN concentrations of fire victims are not routinely determined in most legal medicine services in Romania. We present the case of a room fire victim in which we evaluated the concentrations of HCN and carboxyhemoglobin (COHb), their contribution to the mechanism of death, and the possibility that HCN concentration can be interpreted as vital sign. COHb was determined by spectrophotometry. HCN was spectrophotometrically determined with ninhydrin in postmortem blood samples after its removal with 20% phosphoric acid and uptake into a solution of potassium carbonate. The presence of ethyl alcohol was determined by gas chromatography. The COHb concentration was 6.15%, while the blood HCN concentration was 1.043 µg × mL−1 and the total HCN was 1.904 µg × ml−1. A blood alcohol content of 4.36 g‰ and a urine alcohol content of 5.88 g‰ were also found. Although the fire produced a considerable amount of soot, and there were signs of inhalation of soot particles, the COHb level cannot be interpreted as a vital sign. Toxic concentrations of HCN and total HCN can be interpreted as a vital sign and indicates a contributive effect of HCN in the mechanism of death.

Worldwide, fires constitute one of the main sources of public health problems, causing many deaths and injuries [1,2]. The inhalation of toxic gases that occur during the combustion provokes more fatalities than burns [3,4]. This is because a fire produces a complex toxic environment composed of flame, heat, lack of oxygen, and smoke with a variety of toxic gases. With an increasing variety of synthetic materials in every house, there is an increasing potential for severe health issues due to the inhalation of smoke [1,3,5]. The smoke gas contains carbon