DEATH. 



807 



The next remarkable change which takes 

 place in the tissues is putrefaction, a process 

 in which the ultimate elements of the body, 

 operated upon by external causes, enter into 

 combinations incompatible with the existence 

 of those proximate principles of which the tex- 

 tural molecules are compounded. Some phy- 

 siologists conceive that even putrefaction is 

 not a necessary sign of death. Winslow, 

 however, pronounces it " unicum signum ;" 

 and Bruhier expresses a similar opinion. Hal- 

 ler* says that it may commence in a living 

 person, but that death must be very near at 

 hand. He relates of one Vandenhoeck, his 

 bookseller, that when lying in the last stage of 

 a malignant fever, he prophesied his approach- 

 ing end, and that he grounded his prediction 

 upon his sense of smell. Orfila, one of the 

 greatest authorities upon this subject, considers 

 the commencement of putrefaction a less un- 

 equivocal sign than true rigidity ; his opinion 

 rests upon the fact that he has known persons 

 completely recovered, notwithtsanding the skin 

 was covered with violet spots, which exhaled 

 an infectious odour.f It is remarkable that so 

 acute an observer should have overlooked 

 what seems a very obvious consideration, viz. 

 that these violet spots being caused by extra- 

 vasated blood, perhaps in a state of decom- 

 position, afford no indication that putrefaction 

 has begun in the solids. Sphacelus, though 

 consisting in decomposition, need not be con- 

 founded with putrefaction. The latter change 

 begins always, according to the observation of 

 M. Devergie, either upon the abdomen or the 

 thorax, and has the appearance of a large 

 diffused patch of a green colour, which after- 

 wards becomes brown. The brown portion is 

 surrounded by a green areola indicating the 

 extension of the process. Into the history of 

 putrefaction we cannot enter, but must refer to 

 the valuable " Exhumations Juridiques" of 

 MM. Orfila and Lesueur, and to some papers 

 by M. Devergie in the second volume of the 

 Ann. dTIygiene on the changes in the bodies 

 of persons drowned, and also to a controversy 

 upon the latter subject between this author and 

 M. Orfila, in the fifth and sixth volumes of the 

 same work .J 



After the decomposition has advanced to a 

 certain stage, but sometimes without any putre- 

 faction at all, the tissues, instead of being dissi- 

 pated by conversion into liquid and gaseous 

 substances, which is the essential part of the 

 putrefactive process, may be converted into 

 solid matters widely differing from the original 

 molecules. (See ADIPOCERE and MUMMI- 

 FACTION.) 



3. We have lastly to notice a few signs of 

 the reality of death gathered from the external 

 aspect of the body. The appearance of the 

 face has been already described among the 

 signs of the moribund state. We have only 

 to mention in addition, that instead of the 



* Op. et loc. citat. 



t Op. cit. t. ii. p. 231. 



J Devergie's papers are embodied together with 

 more recent observations in tbe first volume of his 

 "Medecine Legale," published a few months ago. 



paleness or lividity that were present at the 

 time of death, a rosy hue may appear upon 

 the cheeks, which has not urifrequently occa- 

 sioned a deceitful hope that life was not yet 

 extinct. The cause was very rationally as- 

 cribed by Mr. Chevalier to the action of at- 

 mospheric air upon the blood accumulated in 

 the capillaries. This phenomenon is more 

 likely to occur when syncope has followed 

 asphyxia. We remember it once very dis- 

 tinctly in a person who had died of acute 

 hepatitis, but in whose last hours there had 

 been considerable pulmonary congestion; it 

 made its appearance on the third day after 

 death. The state of the eyes has been much 

 insisted upon by some ; particularly their dul- 

 ness, the shrinking of the cornea* from the 

 diminution of the aqueous humour, and the 

 viscid mucous secretion which forms what is 

 called the film of death ; but these appearances 

 may be absent in real death, and present be- 

 fore life has terminated. Thus the eye is often 

 prominent and glittering after death by carbonic 

 acid, and by hydrocyanic acid. 



The iris is generally represented to be in a 

 state of dilatation. Winslowf paid conside- 

 rable attention to it, and states that he gene- 

 rally found the pupil of a moderate size, often 

 much contracted but never much dilated. 

 WhyttJ makes the same observation. The 

 fact appears to differ with different animals. 

 Thus in the cat and pigeon the pupil dilates 

 after death, while in the rabbit it contracts. 

 Our own observations upon the human sub- 

 ject incline us to report the pupil a few hours 

 after death as in a state midway between con- 

 traction and dilatation. It is difficult to speak 

 with precision upon the point, because that 

 which would be relative contraction in the 

 pupil of one person would be dilatation in 

 another, and vice versa. We have known ob- 

 servers confound immobility with dilatation, 

 and to this circumstance we attribute the 

 common statement that the pupil is dilated 

 at and after death. It is evident that if we 

 admit that the contraction and dilatation de- 

 pend upon predominant action of the lon- 

 gitudinal or of the circular fibres, we ought 

 to expect in the death of the part neither the 

 one condition nor the other ; but as the con- 

 tractility of this as of other muscular parts 

 may survive the cessation of the central func- 

 tions, either set of fibres may prevail for a 

 time. It must be remembered however that con- 

 traction of the iris may depend upon a cause 

 altogether different from contraction of its 

 fibres, viz. congestion of blood in its tissue, 

 which is said to have some analogy to the 

 erectile. M. Renard states that in some ex- 

 periments upon dead bodies instituted for the 

 purpose of ascertaining the effects of com- 

 pression of the diaphragm upwards by the 

 development of gas in the abdomen, found 



* Louis fancied that this sign was invariable. 



t Op. cit. 



| On the Vital and other Involuntary Motions of 

 Animals, p. 129. 



$ Mayo's Outlines of Physiology, p. 292, 3d 

 edit. 



