Research Question #2
To continue the How Do I Research kick I started...
This one is for an original fic, which is in a completely different genre, and needs more specific information than I can safely obtain in a few quick searches. It's the sort of detail that, if I get wrong, will throw off the believability of the story. But it's also the sort of detail that will not have a definitive answer, so I have to get as much information as possible to come up with an answer that will fly.
To help you determine whether to click ahead through to the LJ cut, I'll be talking about dead bodies.
The original fic has a scene with the body of a person who is dead. The manner of death is not clearly obvious to the cursory examination, but a coroner will know what happened after thorough examination. The people who are around the body in this scene are neither experienced policemen nor medical professionals, but one of the two people knows enough about dead bodies that they would know how a body would behave very shortly after death. As of the time of writing, there was mention of rigor mortis.
The question that stopped me from writing more was whether a body that has been exsanguinated (drained of blood) would even have rigor mortis.
I have an unfair advantage that I have a working knowledge of human physiology and all things biochemical. I also wasted my youth reading everything forensics- and pathology-related that I could get my hands on -- to the point where my parents were getting embarrassed by the strange looks we got at the library because I insisted on grabbing a pile of books that were very clearly out of my age range.
But for the purpose of this research example, I'm going to take all my research from the Internets, and not from the books on my bookshelf.
For safety's sake, I will flag any links that contain disturbing images, but please be warned that the actual contents may contain information that will upset you. Please be safe. Don't click if you don't think you'll be OK.
Google search #1: Rigor Mortis
Google does show some Google Image searches with this one, so don't do your own search unless you're not concerned. On the plus side, the images that do come up for me are movie-related, with graphics that are more disturbing because they're terrible, so there's nothing terribly gruesome.
The first link is, of course, Wikipedia. I'm gonna skip it because for this kind of thing, I'd want to back it up with at least two solid references. I may have searched for a broad term, but I know I'll find the answer to my questions somewhere in those broad searches.
The first question that I have is: How quickly does rigor mortis set in under standard environmental conditions? The body is in a pretty boring, somewhat environmentally-controlled environment, so I already know that nothing will slow down or accelerate the decomposition stages of a body. It turns out that the physiological changes after death aren't as simple as the body turning as stiff as a board and there are actually three stages, but I don't really care about the details because the people on the scene don't, either. For them, it's more of a "Huh, that's strange" or "That's interesting" kind of observation
Both the link above and this one confirm that rigor mortis can begin shortly after death (usually visible in the shoulders and facial muscles, first, but our victim is face-down and one would be more concerned with lividity than rigor mortis at this point), but doesn't really fully set in for at least a minimum of two hours, though it can take up to six hours, depending.
Since our people are on the scene within the two hours of the victim's death, they should at least notice that the body's getting stiff, but nothing more than that. The first link has a very neat point -- A few adult corpses may not undergo perceptible rigor mortis. Folklore in Britain, the Philippines, and elsewhere ascribed fearsome supernatural powers to these "limber corpses." -- which I will keep in mind for later. Because, you know. Neat!
However, my quick skim through those two links leads me to randomly wonder, How long does rigor mortis last under standard environmental conditions?
Turns out, quite a long time. Both links above and the Wiki page offer a general guides -- anywhere from 12 to 84 hours after death, correlating with body temperature. The information's not essential for what I'm writing (not right now anyway), so I file that as "Huh, interesting", and move on.
The second question that I have is: If a body has no blood in it, does it undergo rigor mortis?
This is a question that a general search isn't going to help me with, so I put in a new search term: Exsanguination + rigor mortis.
I don't get many hits. The first three links are Wikipedia, the two links already mentioned above, plus two others, all of which are missing exsanguination in the search. The last two are a thesis defence for research characterizing the process of rigor mortis in a specific muscle group under different conditions. It's also in Spanish, which is a language I can contextually understand, especially if it's about something scientific, because most terms cross language barriers. Somewhere in the 145 page document, there's mention of a test using exsanguinated conditions (I know because Google told me), but I've already spent two hours today reading scientific journals for work-related questions, and, you know. Enough is enough for the day.
I'll try a different search term: rigor mortis +no blood in body. I'm going for simpler, because exsanguination is a big, too-specific word, and smaller, simpler language always gives more hits. A quick skim of the first two pages of links once again gives the two links I've already mentioned, plus a whole lot of general information, but nothing about a body that doesn't have blood in it, or whether it undergoes rigor mortis at al.
Impatient, I'm going to just ask Google the question: If there's no blood in the body will there be rigor mortis?
Of course, it doesn't give me the answer. I'm tempted to get up, go pawing through my bookshelves, and come up for air with a couple of reference books, but I said I'd only use the Internets, so I'll just use the Internets.
I go back to the first link. I'm going to italicize and underline direct quotations.
At the moment of death, the muscles relax completely-a condition called "primary flaccidity." The muscles then stiffen, perhaps due to coagulation of muscle proteins or a shift in the muscle's energy containers (ATP-ADP), into a condition known as rigor mortis.
Rigor mortis begins within two to six hours of death, starting with the eyelids, neck, and jaw. This sequence may be due to the difference in lactic acid levels among different muscles, which corresponds to the difference in glycogen levels and to the different types of muscle fibers.
The onset of rigor mortis is more rapid if the environment is cold and if the decedent had performed hard physical work just before death. Its onset also varies with the individual's age, sex, physical condition, and muscular build.
According to this, blood has nothing to do with rigor mortis (livor mortis, on the other hand, is a different story). It has to do with muscle proteins and lactic acid levels.
So the short answer that I'm looking for is that, yes, an exsanguinated body will undergo rigor mortis. How long will it last? I don't care, I don't plan on seeing the body again in the story unless they go to the coroner, to the funeral parlour, or the funeral -- each conditions have even greater chances of not happening than the last.
I have an answer I'm happy with. I finish writing the scene. All this research was trimmed down to one line in the original fic -- something along the lines of, they moved the body, it didn't move easily, the joints were a bit stiff...
I spent about 40 mintues looking for my answer. Those 40 minutes were distracted minutes, though, because I was also watching TV and talking to the Spouse. To my great shame, I cheated with the whole Internets-only search, because I asked him if exsanguinated bodies undergo rigor mortis, to which he answered, "That is the sort of information that I do not possess," because he's a smartass. So I told him what I found out about the rigor mortis process, and he says, "Yeah, that makes sense, I'll buy that."
All I'm going for is plausibility, so that's good enough for me.
Then, the Spouse asked, "Why are you asking, are you going to kill me?"
I smiled enigmatically and said, "Not today."
.
This one is for an original fic, which is in a completely different genre, and needs more specific information than I can safely obtain in a few quick searches. It's the sort of detail that, if I get wrong, will throw off the believability of the story. But it's also the sort of detail that will not have a definitive answer, so I have to get as much information as possible to come up with an answer that will fly.
To help you determine whether to click ahead through to the LJ cut, I'll be talking about dead bodies.
The original fic has a scene with the body of a person who is dead. The manner of death is not clearly obvious to the cursory examination, but a coroner will know what happened after thorough examination. The people who are around the body in this scene are neither experienced policemen nor medical professionals, but one of the two people knows enough about dead bodies that they would know how a body would behave very shortly after death. As of the time of writing, there was mention of rigor mortis.
The question that stopped me from writing more was whether a body that has been exsanguinated (drained of blood) would even have rigor mortis.
I have an unfair advantage that I have a working knowledge of human physiology and all things biochemical. I also wasted my youth reading everything forensics- and pathology-related that I could get my hands on -- to the point where my parents were getting embarrassed by the strange looks we got at the library because I insisted on grabbing a pile of books that were very clearly out of my age range.
But for the purpose of this research example, I'm going to take all my research from the Internets, and not from the books on my bookshelf.
For safety's sake, I will flag any links that contain disturbing images, but please be warned that the actual contents may contain information that will upset you. Please be safe. Don't click if you don't think you'll be OK.
Google search #1: Rigor Mortis
Google does show some Google Image searches with this one, so don't do your own search unless you're not concerned. On the plus side, the images that do come up for me are movie-related, with graphics that are more disturbing because they're terrible, so there's nothing terribly gruesome.
The first link is, of course, Wikipedia. I'm gonna skip it because for this kind of thing, I'd want to back it up with at least two solid references. I may have searched for a broad term, but I know I'll find the answer to my questions somewhere in those broad searches.
The first question that I have is: How quickly does rigor mortis set in under standard environmental conditions? The body is in a pretty boring, somewhat environmentally-controlled environment, so I already know that nothing will slow down or accelerate the decomposition stages of a body. It turns out that the physiological changes after death aren't as simple as the body turning as stiff as a board and there are actually three stages, but I don't really care about the details because the people on the scene don't, either. For them, it's more of a "Huh, that's strange" or "That's interesting" kind of observation
Both the link above and this one confirm that rigor mortis can begin shortly after death (usually visible in the shoulders and facial muscles, first, but our victim is face-down and one would be more concerned with lividity than rigor mortis at this point), but doesn't really fully set in for at least a minimum of two hours, though it can take up to six hours, depending.
Since our people are on the scene within the two hours of the victim's death, they should at least notice that the body's getting stiff, but nothing more than that. The first link has a very neat point -- A few adult corpses may not undergo perceptible rigor mortis. Folklore in Britain, the Philippines, and elsewhere ascribed fearsome supernatural powers to these "limber corpses." -- which I will keep in mind for later. Because, you know. Neat!
However, my quick skim through those two links leads me to randomly wonder, How long does rigor mortis last under standard environmental conditions?
Turns out, quite a long time. Both links above and the Wiki page offer a general guides -- anywhere from 12 to 84 hours after death, correlating with body temperature. The information's not essential for what I'm writing (not right now anyway), so I file that as "Huh, interesting", and move on.
The second question that I have is: If a body has no blood in it, does it undergo rigor mortis?
This is a question that a general search isn't going to help me with, so I put in a new search term: Exsanguination + rigor mortis.
I don't get many hits. The first three links are Wikipedia, the two links already mentioned above, plus two others, all of which are missing exsanguination in the search. The last two are a thesis defence for research characterizing the process of rigor mortis in a specific muscle group under different conditions. It's also in Spanish, which is a language I can contextually understand, especially if it's about something scientific, because most terms cross language barriers. Somewhere in the 145 page document, there's mention of a test using exsanguinated conditions (I know because Google told me), but I've already spent two hours today reading scientific journals for work-related questions, and, you know. Enough is enough for the day.
I'll try a different search term: rigor mortis +no blood in body. I'm going for simpler, because exsanguination is a big, too-specific word, and smaller, simpler language always gives more hits. A quick skim of the first two pages of links once again gives the two links I've already mentioned, plus a whole lot of general information, but nothing about a body that doesn't have blood in it, or whether it undergoes rigor mortis at al.
Impatient, I'm going to just ask Google the question: If there's no blood in the body will there be rigor mortis?
Of course, it doesn't give me the answer. I'm tempted to get up, go pawing through my bookshelves, and come up for air with a couple of reference books, but I said I'd only use the Internets, so I'll just use the Internets.
I go back to the first link. I'm going to italicize and underline direct quotations.
At the moment of death, the muscles relax completely-a condition called "primary flaccidity." The muscles then stiffen, perhaps due to coagulation of muscle proteins or a shift in the muscle's energy containers (ATP-ADP), into a condition known as rigor mortis.
Rigor mortis begins within two to six hours of death, starting with the eyelids, neck, and jaw. This sequence may be due to the difference in lactic acid levels among different muscles, which corresponds to the difference in glycogen levels and to the different types of muscle fibers.
The onset of rigor mortis is more rapid if the environment is cold and if the decedent had performed hard physical work just before death. Its onset also varies with the individual's age, sex, physical condition, and muscular build.
According to this, blood has nothing to do with rigor mortis (livor mortis, on the other hand, is a different story). It has to do with muscle proteins and lactic acid levels.
So the short answer that I'm looking for is that, yes, an exsanguinated body will undergo rigor mortis. How long will it last? I don't care, I don't plan on seeing the body again in the story unless they go to the coroner, to the funeral parlour, or the funeral -- each conditions have even greater chances of not happening than the last.
I have an answer I'm happy with. I finish writing the scene. All this research was trimmed down to one line in the original fic -- something along the lines of, they moved the body, it didn't move easily, the joints were a bit stiff...
I spent about 40 mintues looking for my answer. Those 40 minutes were distracted minutes, though, because I was also watching TV and talking to the Spouse. To my great shame, I cheated with the whole Internets-only search, because I asked him if exsanguinated bodies undergo rigor mortis, to which he answered, "That is the sort of information that I do not possess," because he's a smartass. So I told him what I found out about the rigor mortis process, and he says, "Yeah, that makes sense, I'll buy that."
All I'm going for is plausibility, so that's good enough for me.
Then, the Spouse asked, "Why are you asking, are you going to kill me?"
I smiled enigmatically and said, "Not today."
.