As soon as the vital action ceases, decomposition ensues in the
substances which were before the very elements of life, viz.:
blood, lymph, chyme, chyle and gastric juice, become active agents
in its destruction.
In the blood, the most important agent during life, as soon as
life ceases it becomes one of the first to produce that blackened,
putrid and sloughing condition we find shortly after death. The
blood being
left in every part of the body, it breaks up and forms new
compounds, of which only a general outline is attainable, for want
of definite chemical analysis or microscopical observation. The
fibrine and serum separate; the former, which contains most of the
red corpuscles, albumen, saline and fatty substances, glutinates or
coagulates on the sides of the vessels themselves, while the serum
permeates the surrounding tissues, uniting with oxygen carried off
from the pulmonary structure during life, and these, having an
affinity for the tissues, form those compounds termed sulphuretted
and carburetted hydrogen gases, giving rise to that effluvium which
characterize deceased bodies.