The student's hand-book of forensic medicine and public health / by H. Aubrey Husband.

  • Husband, H. Aubrey (Henry Aubrey)
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The student's hand-book of forensic medicine and public health / by H. Aubrey Husband. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    55/758 (page 39)
    diseases, as in the case of typhoid, phthisis, and dropsy, following organic disease, or of those diseases attended with more or less putridity of the fluids. (b) Effects of Poisons.—Putrefaction rapidly super- venes in those who have died suffocated by smoke, by carbonic oxide, and by sulphuretted hydrogen. Nar- cotic poisoning is stated to accelerate this condition j but poisoning by phosphorous, alcoholic blood poisoning, and in cases of death from sulphuric acid, the putrefactive changes are greatly retarded. The manner in which death takes place from the action of the poison greatly hastens or retards putrefaction. Thus, in the case of poisoning by strychnia, it is found that when death has occurred rapidly, without much muscular exhaus- tion, putrefaction sets in slowly ; but that, when the muscular irritability has been by successive fits greatly exhausted, the contrary is the result. Arsenic, chloride of zinc, and antimony are reputed to possess antiseptic properties. External Conditions which modify Putrefaction. 1. Air.—Exposure in the open air has a marked effect in promoting putrefaction; but garments fitting close to the body, and thus excluding air, have a con- trary effect. Dry air, or air in motion, by assisting evaporation from the corpse, acts as a preservative. The composition of the soil in w^hich the body is placed has also a more or less modifying effect. In light, porous soil, allowing of the free ingress of air, decom- position is more rapid than in close, compact soil, as clay; but in this we have to contend with another agent—moisture—which more or less counteracts the protective virtue of the closer earth. 2, Moisture.—Putrefaction cannot proceed without moisture. The body, however, contains sufficient water to enable this process to commence spontaneously