A STUDY ON ASSAULT CASES ADMITTED TO COLOMBO SOUTH TEACHING HOSPITAL-SRI LANKA

Assault cases are commonly encountered in the day to day life of a Judicial Med-ical Ofβicer or an Accident Service Surgeon. Most of the admissions to the Acci-dent Service Unit of any major hospital in almost anywhere in the world are dueto accidents and assaults. Accidents are preventable disasters and there aremajor organizations whose main role is to draw strategies and plans to preventaccidents. Ontheotherhand, assaultsarealwaysman-madeandtheunderlyingfactors are very different from those of accidents. Assaults are a serious healthand economic burden in a country. Additionally, there are socio-economic, reli-gious, ethnic, cultural and legal issues intermingled with the broad picture of‘assaults'. Very few studies have been done in depth about assaults in the recentpast which cover the multiple aspect of the issue. Even the conclusions drawnfrom the most extensive study on this subject may become obsolete and dilapi-dated after few years, as the patterns of wounding and the methods and trendsare changing constantly across the globe. This justiβies the necessity of contin-uous research by different authorities to this ever-changing subject. This studydiscusses certain demographic characters of victims, assailants, contributoryfactors and legal implications of assaults.