(f) Holding the hand, with the fingers abducted, against a strong fight, and observing whether or not the web of the fingers is translucent.
(g) Inserting a brightly polished needle into a fleshy part of the body, allowing it to remain for ten seconds or so in situ, and noticing whether it is tarnished or not on withdrawing it.
(h) Injecting hypodermically a solution of fluorescin (resorcin-phthalein and sodium bicarbonate, a gramme of each dissolved in 8 c.c. of water). No local discoloration of the skin takes place if the circulation has ceased, but if not, a yellowish-green coloration of the skin occurs round the seat of injection, and the substance may be detected in the blood at a part some distance from the seat of injection. By immersing some white silk threads in the blood drawn at a distance from the prick, then boiling them in distilled water, the latter will have a greenish colour if the fluorescin has been circulated (Icard‘s test).
These tests will detect whether the circulation has ceased or not, and so differentiate suspended animation from real death.
2. The lustre of the eye is lost immediately after death. It has, however, been stated that the iris will respond to the action of atropine and eserine for some hours after death, and that the action of the latter is always more marked than that of the former. The fundus as seen by ophthalmoscopic examination is altered, the normal redness changes to a yellowish-white, the vessels in the disc and just around it become empty, and the veins appear to contain bubbles of gas and the column of blood is broken up (Bouchet). A blackish round or oval stain has been described by M. Larcher on the sclerotic coat on the outer side, which he calls l‘imbibition cadavérique du fond de l‘œil. It is probably due to thinning of the sclerotic from evaporation, enabling the choroid to be seen through it. The spot precedes rigidity and is a forerunner of putrefaction.
3. The most powerful stimulus applied to the body does not cause any reaction. The muscles may, however, be made to contract shortly after death by the stimulus of a slight blow, or by galvanism.
4. The surface of the body becomes of an ashy-white colour.
Exceptions.
(1) Persons of florid complexion retain this on the malar prominence for some time after death.
(2) The red or livid edges of ulcers.