The difficulty experienced in removing a pistol or other weapon from the hand may point to suicide; its easy removal to homicide, the weapon having been placed there after death.
No adequate explanation of this phenomenon has yet been made. It is not an unusually early onset of rigor mortis in the muscles affected, because they do not share in the initial relaxation that precedes it, or the weapon would fall from the hand, and the bodies would not retain the peculiar attitudes which have been described in different instances. Nothing can simulate cadaveric spasm and it cannot be produced in any way after death. Instantaneous rigor only occurs in cases in which there has been great mental tension and nerve excitation before death. It is a continuation of probably the very last voluntary act of life.
A body showing the signs of death before mentioned (Nos. 1 to 10) may be held to be that of a person who has been dead from two to three days at the longest (Casper).
Muscular states of the body between the period of somatic and molecular death:—
(1) Primary Flaccidity.—The muscles respond to electrical stimuli; the chemical reaction of the muscles is either neutral or faintly alkaline.
(2) Cadaveric Rigidity or Rigor Mortis.—During this condition molecular death takes place; the muscles do not respond to stimuli, but fresh defibrinated blood passed through the muscles will restore the response to stimulation, and their reaction is markedly acid.
(3) Secondary Flaccidity.—Disintegration of the muscular elements takes place, no stimuli will provoke response, and the reaction again becomes alkaline.
Table showing the principal points to be noted in the period of accession of Cadaveric Rigidity and the causes which retard or hasten its appearance, or modify its duration:—
In what does it consist?—In a shortening and thickening of the muscles, particularly the flexors and adductors of the extremities, and elevators of the lower jaw.
Period of Invasion.—Generally in from eight to twenty hours after death. It has been known, however, to supervene within three minutes of death, but it may be delayed for sixteen or seventeen hours.