Time passed since death from degenerative changes in the Skeletal muscle

Time since death is made out from gross postmortem changes like cooling of the body, postmortem staining, rigor mortis, decomposition etc. In the present study Histological changes in the skeletal muscle were studied at various postmortem intervals in the human body died due to road traffic accidents. This study was conducted in the Department of Forensic Medicine in collaboration with Department of Pathology, G.S.V.M. Medical College, Kanpur, U.P. A total of 45 cases belonging to both sexes i.e. 36 males and 9 females were studied. These were of different age groups.

All road traffic accidents were taken into account. In this study control could not be taken because the histological changes of tissue after death were influenced a great deal by atmospheric temperature and humidity besides other external and internal factors. Therefore these must be taken into account in all studies of postmortem interval whether histological, biochemical or physical. In this study, the sequence of various microscopic changes in different organs and tissues were compared with those of gross changes. The microscopic changes were observed last in skeletal muscle after liver, lung and kidney. It is observed that the microscopic changes in skeletal muscle assessed by grading varied with temperature and post mortem interval.