110 INTRODUCTION. 



to be resolved, and the soft parts, gradually, to soften and re- 

 lax. The body, which exhales from the beginning a vapour, 

 whose loss diminishes its weight, then gives out a stale and 

 musly odour. The blood and other humours transude from 

 their reservoirs, and impregnate the surrounding parietes and 

 parts with their colour and odour: thence the colouring of the 

 veins and surrounding cellular tissue which is red, the spots 

 printed on the stomach and the intestines, by the liver, the 

 spleen and gall-bladder, the sero-sanguineous infiltrations in 

 the cellular tissue and serous membranes, their rose, red and 

 brown colours, and the tinging of the abdomenal parietes with 

 a bluish or greenish tint. The humours of the eyes transude, 

 whence the destruction of the cornea and by mingling with 

 the corpuscules that flit about in the eye, they form a slimy 

 coat or covering. 



In this first period, the muscles redden litmus paper. 



129. Putrefaction, which, as respects the regions, gene- 

 rally commences in the abdomen, on account, of theexcremen- 

 titial matter there accumulated; which, as respects the organs, 

 begins in the softest and such as are the most impregnated 

 with fluids, as the encephalic mass, and which also first attacks 

 engorged parts, or such as have been altered by disease or the 

 kind of death, soon becomes general. The epidermis is de- 

 tached, and raised by masses of a brownish sanies; the muscles 

 by the imbibition of the fluids become glutinous, greenish, 

 pulpy and ammoniacal; a putrid and nauseating odour is dis- 

 engaged. 



130. Finally the texture disappears in toto; the soft parts, 

 confounded with the fluids are reduced into a half fluid pu- 

 trescence, mixed with bubbles of gas, exhaling the most infec- 

 tious odour, and the most pernicious vapour. Soon, nought 

 remains but the bones, which in their turn become friable and 

 pulverulent, leaving nothing but a small earthy residuum. 



131. When the conditions of putrefaction are favourable, 

 as after certain diseases and in hot and humid times and places, 

 it commences at the moment of death, and runs through its 

 stages with the greatest rapidity. Under contrary circum- 

 stances it is slow, and may be completed only after the lapse 



