What is the temperature of a corpse?

Corpse temperature is a key medical indicator in forensic medicine and forensics, allowing you to determine the time of death. After death, the temperature gradually decreases, becoming equal to the temperature of the environment. About measurement and factors of decrease in body temperature read in this article.

Corpse cooling period

Speaking about how the temperature of the corpse is reduced, here experts distinguish three stages of cooling. What are they like?

1. At the first stage, the temperature of the corpse passes through a period of disordered cooling. This is a period of time several hours after death.
2. After lowering the body temperature of the corpse, a regular cooling stage takes place - here the corpse cools down according to the laws of the mathematical equation. In time, this period takes from four to twelve hours.
3. In the third period, the temperature of the corpse is equalized with the environment. Usually this period begins after 20-36 hours after death. At the end of the third stage, body temperature no longer decreases.

Corpse temperature measurement

This is an important step in determining the time of death. Methods for determining the temperature of a corpse can be very different - first of all, it is determined by palpation, palpating open areas of the body, as well as under clothing, in the chest, under the armpits and in the groin. So, cooling to the touch in the area of ​​the corpse’s brush will be noticeable already two hours after the death, but the heat under the clothes will remain for about five or seven hours.

Further, the measurement of the temperature of the corpse is carried out using a thermometer - in this case, doctors can use a variety of their types for accurate measurement. In more detail, we often use the following:

1. Alcohol
2. Electric.

Most often, it is an alcohol thermometer that is used to measure the body temperature of a corpse. They use graduation to ten fractions of a degree and a scale from zero to plus forty-five. To determine the temperature of the corpse, measurements with this type of thermometer are carried out in the groin or in the armpits, or injected into the rectum, so the rectal temperature is determined.

It is important to remember that they measure the temperature two or three times with the observance of the interval per hour - this makes it possible in practice to record not just the temperature, but also the dynamics of the process of lowering important indicators, and then use them most accurately. After reaching the temperature of the corpse to room temperature (if the body is stored at room temperature) - complete cooling takes place in a day.

External factors

The rate of change in body temperature of a corpse is largely determined by both external and internal factors. It is to the first that experts relate such moments:

1. Indicators of the temperature background of the environment, how stable they are, what are their fluctuations.
2. Directly important are the indicators of the thermal conductivity of bodies, the thermal capacity of the surface with which the corpse directly contacts. Simply put, they take into account where and on which the body lies.
3. Important indicators and humidity, as well as the movement and strength of the air masses.
4. The presence on the corpse of clothing, other items that isolate it from the external environment.
5. Also, the presence of infrared radiation streams in the external environment is taken into account - whether it is a heating device, sunlight, and so on. These external factors can significantly affect body temperature, leaving it unchanged or changing it in a significant way.

Internal factors affecting the temperature of a corpse

In this case, the following points are taken into account:

1. This is directly the body temperature at the actual moment of the onset of a fatal outcome.
2. The mass of the corpse is taken into account.
3. Also, the degree of subcutaneous fat is also taken into account.
4. It is also worth considering the abundance of blood loss.

All this leads to a sharp decrease in temperature conditions. If we talk about a good example of changes in rectal body temperature taking into account the ambient temperature plus eighteen with a well-developed layer of fat and muscles, we can present the following table.

Thus, dealing with indicators is not at all difficult.