One to Three Days.—Greenish coloration of the abdominal walls. Odour of putrescence is gradually developed, and, concurrently with this, the eyeball becomes soft and yielding to pressure.
Three to Five Days.—The green colour, of a deeper shade, has now passed over the abdomen, extending also to the genital organs. Patches of this green coloration also make their appearance somewhat irregularly on other parts of the body, such as the neck, back, chest, and lower extremities. A dark reddish frothy fluid about this time wells up from the mouth.
Eight to Ten Days.—The patches of green colour have now coalesced, so that the whole body is discoloured. On some parts of the body the colour is of a reddish-green, due to the presence of decomposed blood in the cellular tissue. The abdomen is now distended with gases, the products of decomposition. In India this distension has been known to occur in less than six hours, the average period being a little over eighteen hours. Much depends upon the season of the year. The colour of the eyes has not disappeared, but the cornea have fallen in. Relaxation of the sphincter ani takes place, and the superficial veins appear like reddish-brown cords. The nails still remain firm.
Fourteen to Twenty Days.—The colour of the surface is now bright green, with here and there patches of a blood and brown colour. The epidermal layer of the skin is raised in bullæ of varying size, in some places the skin being more or less stripped off. The nails are detached, and can be easily removed. The hair can be pulled from the scalp with ease. The body is now greatly distended with gases, and the features cannot be recognised, owing to the swollen condition of the face. The body is generally covered with vermin. In determining the time at which death occurred, it will be necessary to take into consideration the season of the year, as it is found that an advanced stage of decomposition may be present in from eight to ten days, with the thermometer ranging between 68° and 77° F., which in winter, with a temperature of from 32° to 50° F., would require twenty to thirty days. “Bodies green from putridity, blown up and excoriated, at the expiry of one month, or from three to five months after death (cæt. par.), cannot with any certainty be distinguished from one another” (Casper).
Three to Six Months.—During the above period the stage of colliquative putrefaction has set in. The thoracic and abdominal cavities, due to the increased formation of gas, have burst. The bones of the cranium have more or less separated, allowing the brain to escape. The soft parts are more or less absorbed, and no recognition of the features is possible. The sex can only be positively made out by the presence of a uterus, or by the peculiar growth of hair on the pubes, which in woman only covers the pubes, but in man extends upwards to the navel.
Saponification.—Bodies exposed to the action of water, or buried in damp, moist soil, are apt to undergo certain changes, in the course of which they become saponified, and the formation of a substance known as adipocere is the result. Adipocere—adeps, lard, and cera, wax—is chiefly composed of margarate of ammonia, together with lime, oxide of iron, potash, certain fatty acids, and a yellow-coloured odorous matter. The melting-point is 126.5° F. Adipocere has a fatty, unctuous feel, is either pure white or of a pale yellowish colour, and with the odour of decayed cheese. It is highly resistant to putrefactive organisms, and is generally free from them. The formation of this substance “to any considerable extent is not likely to occur in less than three to four months in water, or six months in moist earth, though its commencement may take place at a much earlier period” (Casper). The above-quoted authority mentions a case in “which the remains of a fœtus were found imbedded in adipocere, and which fœtus was proved to have been buried in a garden exactly six months and three-quarters.” Taylor also records the case of a bankrupt who committed suicide by drowning, in which the muscles of the buttocks were found converted into adipocere in five weeks and four days at the longest.
Although the above statements may be accepted with regard to the formation of adipocere as far as European countries are concerned, they do not seem to be applicable to India, where the change appears to be more rapid. Dr. S. Coull Mackenzie, in his valuable book on Medico-Legal Experiences in Calcutta, records a case of a young man whose body, recovered after seven days‘ immersion in the river Hooghly, “was found to be in an advanced state of saponification,” and the fleshy portions of undigested food in the stomach were converted entirely into adipocere. “Lastly,” he writes, “in the hot, steamy, rainy months of September and October, in three of the cases above mentioned, saponification was found in bodies immersed in water, both externally and internally, in from two days to eight days ten hours. In the soft and porous soil of Lower Bengal during the rainy seasons, even in a wooden coffin, the change is very rapid—three or four days.”
To explain the formation of adipocere, it has been supposed to be due to the decomposition of the muscular structures of the body, by which hydrogen and nitrogen are evolved, these combining to form ammonia, and this, coming in contact with the fatty acids of the fat, forms a soap. The process of saponification takes place most rapidly in young fat persons; next, in those adults who abound in fat, and in those whose bodies have been exposed to the soil of water-closets; more rapidly in running than in stagnant water; and lastly, in those who have been buried in moist, damp soil, especially if the bodies have been piled one on the top of the other, the lowest being first saponified. The muscular tissue appears to be the first to undergo this change. In water the process is said to be completed in about five months, but in soil a period of two or three years appears necessary.
Mummification is of no medico-legal interest, as the causes which produce it are unknown, and no reliable data can be obtained as to the period of its accession, or the time required for its production.