Safety of Gastric Lavage Using Nasogastric Ryle's Tube in Pesticide Poisoning (Report‪)‬

1. INTRODUCTION Gastric lavage has to be carried out by treating physician in all patients with acute poisoning in India irrespective of nature, severity of poisoning and time interval between ingestion and arrival to hospital as lavage sample has to be provided to legal authorities in addition to blood, urine and other samples. As per Indian penal code (I.P.C.1973), the attending physician should collect, preserve and seal the evidence related to the case of poisoning such as the gastric lavage fluid, vomiting, faeces, urine etc. for onward transmission to forensic science laboratory for chemical analysis. If doctor deliberately fails to do so he is liable to be punished under section of 201 of I.P.C i.e. causing disappearance of evidence of offence or giving false information to screen offender [1]. This is punishable with imprisonment up to 7 years or fine or both. As per Indian law, attempt to commit suicide is an offence under section 309 of I.P.C which states that whoever attempts to commit suicide and does any act towards the commission of such offence, shall be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year or with fine or with both [2].