3. A Third Species Of Death-Marks

A Third Species Of Death-Marks arises from the imbibition, by the coats of bloodvessels, and the transuding from thence into the neighboring tissues, of blood-serum, which, owing to decomposition, has taken up a portion of the pigment of the blood-globules. In this manner are produced the livid strise which follow the course of the subcutaneous veins in the common integuments, the red coloration of the endocardium, and of the internal membranous strata of the vascular trunks, the diffuse reddening of serous and mucous membranes, the red tinge observed in parenchymata and seemingly inherent in their textures. Not only does imbibition pass from one organ to others contiguous, - even fluids, contained within hollow organs, as also in muco-membranous canals and in serous sacs, receive the blood-tinged serum, thereby acquiring the same cadaverous hue; or, again, the blood-tinged serum is found in the said cavities, pure, and unmingled with pre-existing fluids in the form of cadaverous exudations.

The reddening of imbibition is, of course, most readily derived from vessels, the seat of hyperaemia and of stasis; therefore very commonly from the death-patches of the two species above named. The redness of injection characteristic of hyperemia and stasis merges in, or becomes masked and disguised by, that of imbibition.

Death-spots of this kind are marked by absence of injection; by the obvious cause, namely, blood being discoverable at the point of the deepest saturation, and by the stain being washed out towards the circumference.

Where the previous disease involves liquefaction of the blood-plasma - they are rapidly developed, and they increase in saturation and extent in proportion as, favored by various external influences, cadaverous decomposition gains ground.

It would appear, from the above, that death-spots are, for the most part, stains resulting from a combination of hypersemia with imbibition.

Amongst the number of imbibition stains, with the character of death-marks, is to be reckoned the yellow tinge imparted to the membranes of the gall-bladder and of the adjacent membranes of the stomach and intestine by the imbibition of bile.

To Qualitative Alienations Of Color

To Qualitative Alienations Of Color belong more especially, as cadaveric stains subordinate to the above -

1. The original changes of tone in death-stains to blue, purple, and violet, dependent upon the blood-crasis.

2. The brownish and greenish tints, and the dark green dye developed out of the reddening of imbibition, both in the common integuments and in other soft parts, as also in an especial manner in the intestinal membranes and their contiguous formations - namely, the peritoneum, the areolar, adipose, and muscular tissues, and the liver. These varieties of color are produced by certain gases - hydrosulphuric acid and sulphide of ammonia, - evolved in the abdominal cavity, and within the tissues themselves. These gases react thus upon the red pigment of the blood within the tissues generally, and in the muscles most of all.

3. The dark brown, black, green, and ink-black discoloration of the spleen, from its fissured surface to various depths, as also of the ramification of bloodvessels in the fluid sac of the stomach from the imbibition of gastric juice.

4. The more rare violet-red, iodine-colored, diffuse lividity of the intestinal membranes.

Other Preternatural Colorations

Other Preternatural Colorations, for the most part equally cognizable in the living body, are, in particular -

1. The deep red tinge characteristic of thin watery blood, as also of all the tissues, down to the common integuments, in cases of poisoning with carbonic oxide and carbonic acid gas.

2. The copper-red tint of the skin in venereal stains, and in the circumference of venereal ulcers and skin eruptions.

3. The diffuse sallowness, and the circumscribed freckle-spots, termed liver-stains or ephelides, in cachexia.

4. The violet hue of typhous hyperemia and stasis.

5. The greenish and yellowish tones of sugillation of the common integuments, arising from deep-seated extravasation of blood.

6. The yellow tinge of the solids and fluids, assuming manifold shades, the most intense of which are a brazen- and a greenish-yellow, engendered by the coloring matter of the bile, where the secretion and excretion of that fluid are intercepted, or where bile mingles with the blood, as in the typhous crasis. It is frequently superinduced by pyaemia, and occurs as the substantive and essential dyscrasy in yellow atrophy of the liver, and probably in yellow fever. As this pigment generally associates itself with the exsuding plasma, the majority of the soft parts, more especially the vascular and succulent - the secretions and incidental products of inflammation - are all dyed yellow.

7. The rust-yellow, rust-brown, black-brown, and black tints of certain organs, resulting from a corresponding granular pigment, partly contained within pigment-cells - a formation, which will, in the sequel, be considered more at large.

8. In conclusion, those anomalous dyes, produced by the assimilation of pigments, or of substances which, either with or without the intervention of some specific influence - light, for example - enter into peculiarly tinged combinations with animal tissues. As instances of the decoloration of both fluids and solids, we may cite the yellow appearance of the urine from the ingestion of rhubarb, the reddening of the bones from feeding upon the root of rubia tinctorum, the yellowness of the skin and of the mucous membranes produced by nitric acid, the swarthy complexion which follows the internal use of nitrate of silver.