Death by drowning occurs when the breathing is arrested by watery or semi-fluid substances, blood, urine, or the muddy semi-fluid matter found in cesspools and marshes. It is not necessary for the whole body to be submerged. Death may result if the face alone be immersed, as in the case of a man in a fit of drunkenness being drowned in the water contained in the imprint of a horse‘s hoof left in the mud.

In addition to the changes in the internal organs, identical with those present in persons who have died from suffocation or hanging, water is found in the lungs or stomach.

Death may be due to—

Death from pure apoplexy is rare; and it may be affirmed that death from syncope never occurs in the drowned without leaving some signs of asphyxia.

It is more difficult to restore the drowned than those dying from mere stoppage of air from entering the lungs. Few if any persons recover who have been submerged four minutes, and even in cases where this time has been exceeded, followed by recovery, this result is probably due to the person fainting before entering the water.

In death from drowning, the lungs are distended and overlap the heart, and have a peculiar spongy feeling. They also contain a quantity of frothy fluid, which cannot be produced in the dead body, as it is the result of the violent efforts made by the individual to breathe in the act of dying. This frothy condition of the fluid in the lungs is an important sign of death by drowning, especially if the fluid corresponds with that in which the individual is said to have perished. It is just possible, however, that the person may have been first suffocated, and then thrown into the water, froth in the trachea being found in those suffocated; but in this case the froth is small in quantity, and not watery. The froth in the drowned is like that made with soap and water, and is not viscid, thus differing from bronchitic exudation. Water in the stomach is an important indication of death from drowning, especially if the water contained in the stomach can be shown to possess the same characters as that in which the body was found. Water in the intestines is still more important. In a great number of cases this, however, must be next to impossible; when it can be identified, the value of this sign is enhanced by the fact that water does not enter the stomach in those submerged after death, unless putrefaction be far advanced, or the body has lain in very deep water. Casper concluded that a person had been drowned, by finding a small quantity of mud in the stomach after putrefaction had set in. Water, however, may be absent from the stomach if the person fall into the water in a state of syncope, and it may be present if the person has taken a draught of water before submersion.

The effect of season on putrefaction in water is shown in the following table:

Summer. Winter.
5 to 8hoursproduceas much change as 3 to 5days.
24“““4 to 8“
4days““15“
10 to 12“““28 to 42“
(Devergie.)

Of the external signs, the presence of sand, gravel, or mud under the nails may or may not be an important sign, for sand or mud may collect under the nails during the efforts to drag the body from the water; but weeds, &c., grasped in the hands show that there has been a struggle, and point to death from drowning. The cutis anserina—goose skin—present generally on the anterior surface of the body, and not, however, peculiar to death from drowning, is important as a sign of recent vitality. The face of those who have been drowned, and then quickly removed from the water, is pale, and in most cases not swollen; the eyes may or may not be closed; and not infrequently round the mouth there is more or less froth, especially when death is due to apnœa. In summer, however, after two or three days, and longer in winter, the face assumes a reddish or bluish-red coloration, putrefaction taking place about the head and upper extremities earlier than in other forms of death. The contraction or retraction of the penis is a well-marked sign of death by drowning, and Casper asserts that he has “not observed anything similar so constantly after any other kind of death.” Ogston states that he has met with two cases of erection of the penis in the drowned.