#putrefaction

Putrefaction; accelerated; waxen.

... a putrefying body is simply one in which the soft tissues are turning slowly to liquid. The speed of this process of course depends on temperature. In the UK, bodies will usually start to putrefy around three or four days after death and this will be visible to the naked eye quickly. I showed a picture of a body and, with the pointer, drew the officers’ attention to one small area of green discolouration just on the right side of the lower abdomen. ... Our guts are full of bacteria, which are vital for digestion. Now, in death, those bacteria break out of the bowel and into the abdominal cavity and then the blood vessels. The process starts at this certain point on the abdomen, near the appendix, because the abdominal wall is very close to the intestine here. Putrefaction can begin elsewhere, but only with good reason: for example, if a body is lying across a heating pipe, or part of it is in direct sunlight. Wherever it begins, by the time the green blotch is visible on the skin, then the bacteria are running riot inside the body. The blood vessels provide easy channels for the bacteria to spread, causing the haemoglobin there to decompose. Visible result: the extraordinary and beautiful fern-like pattern of the veins closest to the surface becomes clearly etched on the skin as though tattooed in brown. It is often evident on the arms and thighs. ... But, like every death process, this rather beautiful stage is temporary. Gradually the pattern is lost as the skin blisters into red and brown fluid. As the blisters burst, the skin sloughs off. One waste product of all this bacterial activity is gas, and so now the body begins to swell. First the genitals become bloated, followed by the face, abdomen and breasts. Then eyes and tongue protrude as bloody liquid is forced up from the lungs, leaking from nose and mouth. The face, with its popping eyes and tongue, has a look of amazement. ... Swelling bodies at this stage of decomposition become so dark that anyone finding one can wrongly assume a skinny Caucasian was in life an overweight black man. Flies have a role to play in putrefaction by feasting and laying their eggs, which turn into maggots with voracious appetites. Animals, domestic and wild, may also make an important contribution to bodily breakdown (outside there are rats and foxes and inside … well, yes, a starving dog which finds itself locked in the house after a death will probably eat its owner to survive). Within about a week of death – depending as usual on the weather and micro-environment – body cavities will burst and tissues will start to liquefy. Within about a month, the soft tissues are all liquid and these will drain off into the ground. The usual order of decomposition is first the intestines, stomach, liver, blood and heart. Then the lungs and air passages. Next the brain, then the kidneys and bladder. Finally the muscles. The prostate, the uterus, the tendons and the ligaments are relatively resistant to putrefaction and may not break down for months to leave the skeleton stripped.