278 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



albuminoid matter which composes the muscular fibres, as the solidifi- 

 cation of the blood results from coagulation of its fibrine. After a 

 few hours the coagulated musculine grows fluid again, rigidity passes 

 away, and the muscles relax. Something not dissimilar takes place 

 also in the blood. The globules change, lose shape, and suffer the be- 

 ginning of dissociation. The agents of putrefaction, vibrios and bac- 

 teria, thus enter upon their great work by insidiously breaking up the 

 least seen parts. 



At last, when partial revivals are no longer possible, when the last 

 flicker of life has gone out and corpse-like rigidity has ceased, a new 

 work begins. The living germs that had collected on the surface of the 

 body and in the digestive canal develop, multiply, pierce into all the 

 points of the organism, and produce in it a complete separation of the 

 tissues and humors ; this is putrefaction. The moment of its appear- 

 ance varies with the causes of death and the degree of outward tem- 

 perature. When death is the result of a putrid malady, putrefaction 

 begins almost immediately when the body has grown cold. It is the 

 same when the atmosphere is warm. In general, in our climates, the 

 work of decomposition becomes evident after from thirty-eight to 

 forty hours. Its first effects are noticeable on the skin of the stomach ; 

 this takes on a greenish discoloration, which soon spreads and covers 

 successively the whole surface of the body. At the same time the 

 moist parts, the eye, the inside of the mouth, soften and decay ; then 

 the cadaverous odor is gradually developed, at first faint and slightly 

 fetid, a mouldy smell, then a pungent and ammoniacal stench. Little 

 by little the flesh sinks in and grows watery ; the organs cease to be 

 distinguishable. Every thing is seized upon by what is termed pu- 

 tridity. If the tissues are examined under the microscope at this mo- 

 ment, we no longer recognize any of the anatomical elements of which 

 the organic fabric is made up in its normal state. " Our flesh," Bos- 

 suet exclaims in his funeral-sermon on Henrietta of England, " soon 

 changes its nature, our body takes another name ; even that of a corpse, 

 used because it still exhibits something of the human figure, does not 

 long remain with it. It becomes a thing without a shape, which in 

 every language is without a name." When structure has wholly dis- 

 appeared, nothing more remains but a mixture of saline, fat, and pro- 

 teic matters, which are either dissolved and carried away by water, or 

 slowly burned up by the air's oxygen, and transmuted into new prod- 

 ucts, and the whole substance of the body, except the skeleton, returns 

 piecemeal to the earth whence it came forth. Thus the ingredients of 

 our organs, the chemical elements of our bodies, turn to mud and dust 

 again. From this mud and this dust issue unceasingly new life and 

 energetic activity ; but a clay fit for the commonest uses may also be 

 got from it, and, in the words of Shakespeare's Hamlet, the dust of 

 Alexander or Caesar may plug the vent of a beer-cask, or " stop a hole 

 to keep the wind away." These " base uses," of which the Prince of 



