The temperature of the body relied on by some, is by no means a correct guide. An icy skin, although sooner or later an unfailing accompaniment, is not of itself a sufficient evidence of death. The temperature of the body for hours after death will be owing in a great measure to age, the disease of which the person died, habits of body and the temperature of the room, in which it is placed. The bodies of young persons retain heat longer than those of old In old age or slow and exhausting disease the bodies are frequently cold even before the breath has left the body, certainly in a very short time after. In most kinds of asphyxia, except drowning the bodies grow cold very slowly, also in diseases which are very rapid in their progress. The change from warmth to cold will be slower where the body is well wrapped up, in summer than in winter, in still atmosphere than in currents of air. There are numerous cases, as in hysterics and various other forms of disease, where the coldness of the body is corpse-like, notwithstanding there are no immediate indications of death. The first apparent effect of death is relaxation of the muscles. The flesh is soft, the joints flexible, the lower jaw drops and the limbs hang heavily. This is followed by contraction, in which the flesh is hard, the muscles rigid and the joints unbending. The rigidity commences in the trunk and neck; it then appears in the thoracic extremities, then in the lower, and in receding passes off in the same way. Its appearance is varied by age, the constitution of the person, and the form of disease. It appears on an average five or six hours after death, and ordinarily continues from sixteen to twenty-four hours, In those who die of lingering diseases, old age, and where life slowly ebbs away, it comes on more quickly, sometimes in half an hour, and remains but a short time, continuing longer, where it commences latest. In the strong and athletic, in most of those who die a speedy or violent death, the contraction is strong in a ratio with the development of the muscular system at death, is slow in advancing and slow in going off. In these cases it is often a day or two before it commences, and sometimes lasts a week. When contraction of the muscles commences, we know that life is extinct, as this phenomenon never occurs as long as the body retains the least particle of vitality. When this rigidity passes off, the body again become flexible, and this is another strong indication of death. Flexibility after rigidity is not to be mistaken for that which occurs before. So long as the limbs continue flexible before rigidity we may suppose there may be some remains of life.

After rigidity passes off, and, not before, begins putrefaction. It generally commences in the belly, the skin of which turns a bluish green, gradually increasing to brown or black, and progressively spreads over the body. Myston regards this stiffness as a measure of resistance opposed by organic to chemical forces. "Life on the point of extinction seems to take refuge in the muscles, and there causes the spasms we speak of, and during their continuance is able to resist the operation of chemical forces." It will readily be perceived that the rigidity of the body is a point of great importance, and there is no necessity for the cadaverous stiffness to be mistaken for any other. In stiffness, occasioned by freezing where the body is not yet dead, not the muscles only but the entire body, belly, breasts, and skin are hard. This together with the crackling of the joints on forcible flexure, is a sufficiently marked point of distinc-' tion. Neither can the stiffness, which occurs in certain forms of disease, well be mistaken for that which takes place after death. In the former case it occurs while the body has a certain amount of heat, and precedes apparent death - in the latter, the body is comparatively cold, and there is a distinct interregnum after apparent death. In both cases there is great difficulty in moving the limb, but in the former when bent, if the force is removed, it flies back to its former position, while in the latter, it continues its bent form; and if death takes place in these convulsive diseases, the stiffness passes off, and is followed at the proper time by the rigidity of death, which runs its usual course. But a mark which cannot be mistaken is the termination of cadnverous rigidity, in flexibility, which is a certain indication of dissolution

From what has been said, it will be seen that the detection of the presence of death is not generally a very diilicult matter. Instances have undoubtedly occurred where persons have been buried alive; yet they were principally in days of ignorance and superstition, or daring a period when some terrific pestilence was numbering its victims by hundreds or thousands; when the change from life to apparent death covered over but a few hours, and when a person was hurried, in the clothes in which he died, into his coffin and grave. At these times when the community and friends are panic-stricken, we may reasonably suppose that occasionally cases occurred, where apparent was mistaken for real death. There are but few cases in which .a physician would have any difficulty in detecting the presence of death.

In opening graves for the purpose of removing the dead or for other causes, bodies have been found turned on their sides, the grave-clothes disarranged, and the flesh lacerated. Many a tender heart has been made sad, and many a bitter tear shed as these developments of life in the grave have been unfolded. These mysteries, however, are very easily explained, without torturing the heart with the idea that a friend has aroused from the stupor of apparent death to find himself in the grave, and there writhing and gnawing his flesh in the agony of despair, died. A gas sooner or later is developed in the decaying body, which by its mechanical force, mimics many of the movements of life. It twists about the body, blows out the skin until it rends, and sometimes bursts the coffin. This gas is so powerful in corpses which have been some time in the water, that M. Devergie, the physician to the Morgue in Paris, says, that unless secured to the table they are often heaved up and thrown to the ground. The food is sometimes forced from the mouth, and the blood from the nose, and even the pores in the skin. The bloody sweat which in days of superstition was supposed to appear on the murdered body in the presence of the assassin, must have been produced by the struggling gas forcing out the fluid.