Rigor Mortis Research Paper

Once the body took its last breath, a series of things begins to occur. First the body itself shuts down completely. Then soon after the heart stops pumping blood through the body, and because of oxygen loss, cells are dying promptly. Now different cells die at different rates, depending on the importance of the cell, and what the cell is. An example of this is that brain cells within minutes, while the skin can survive over 24 hours after death (What Happens to the Body after Death 1). Due to death the blood of the body, then begins to settle in the closet part to the ground of the body, giving the body discoloration, (typically a grayish white looking tone) and darkening

In “On Natural Death,” Thomas appeals to the readers by contemplating the subject of death with an academic approach that includes facts, data, and information. Thomas successfully transforms death from an awkward, emotional subject to a more comfortable intellectual one. This engages the readers by placing contemplation of death and dying within the confines of a more manageable and rational context. His gradual exhumation of death eases the audience into pondering the subject in the absence of emotional stress. The essay transitions from the death of an elm tree to that of a mouse. This is followed by Thomas giving a significant amount of attention to a scientific explanation of death, and then finally the description of the near death experience of a human. This use of an academic appeal moves the audience to a comfort zone with the subject of death and circumvents the common response of avoidance. The reader is simultaneously desensitized to the gravity of subject matter and given permission to consider death and dying without the normal societal negative stigma associated with the subject.

It takes approximately twelve hours for the rigor mortis to become fully pronounced. It then lasts for approximately twelve hours and then takes up to another twelve hours for the muscles to lose their firmness (Young & Ortmeier, 2011). While the body is transitioning through rigor mortis, other changes are simultaneously occurring.

Death is final, sudden and yet eternal it yawns before and behind us all. In “The Death of

Corr, C. A., Corr, D. M., & Bordere, T. C. (2013). Death & dying, life & living. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

McMahan 's The Metaphysics of Brain Death presents a case for the distinction between the body as the organism and the mind as the person. In defining this “mind-body dualism” (sec. 0, abstract), McMahan 's distinction brings forth a greater implication in the criterion for the death of a person, exploring the “dominant conception of brain death” which reasons that the loss of capacity for consciousness, caused by irreversible damage to the whole brain or brain stem, is sufficient for such a declaration as a persons ceasing to live (sec. 1, pars. 1-3). McMahan does not oppose the argument of brain death on the grounds of capacity for consciousness, but rather uses this to present that “the death of the entire brain is not equivalent to

Firstly, Lock establishes what the general definitions are for each culture. While North Americans focus on the physical brain state to indicate the time of one’s death, the Japanese understand death as having an element

" . . . a green discoloration of the abdomen . . . autolysis of the organs . . . what we call skin slippage . . . the core body temperature reaches 108 degrees when death

Our first and main goal is to determine the mode of death (Ebert, N.d, 1987). Keep in mind that the mode of death and the mean of death are two separate things (Ebert, N.d, 1987). When we want to know the mean of death, we are trying to find out how someone died (Ebert, N.d, 1987). When we look at the mode of death, we look at if the death was caused by an accident, natural causes, a homicide, or suicide (Ebert, N.d, 1987). The next goal is to find out why the death occurred at a certain time and date (Ebert, N.d, 1987). The death could have occurred because of the victim being in the wrong place at the wrong time, anniversary of a loved one, or because of a grudge against the victim (Ebert, N.d, 1987). Next, we look at the motivation for the death (Ebert, N.d, 1987). The motivation for death includes intentional, sub-intentional, and unintentional (Ebert, N.d, 1987). The fourth and last purpose is to bring peace to the survivor’s family (Ebert, N.d, 1987). The autopsy can help bring closure to the family and help answer questions (Ebert, N.d,

Today, Western culture surrounding the end of one’s life is strongly rooted in Cartesian thinking. Nowhere is the split between mind and body more present than in the legal definitions surrounding brain death. In the essay “Our Neo-Cartesian Bodies in Parts”, Hacking writes that when a person is declared to be brain dead, all that remains is “a body kept going by chemistry and mechanics” (248). This is the idea that a person’s body can remain seemingly alive even though the mind has long since ceased to be conscious. This is accepted, both legally and culturally, because Western culture is comfortable with the notion that the consciousness, or “soul”, of a person is located singularly in the brain.

The process begins while a muscle is relaxed in its resting state. “In the resting state,

Should Nebraska allow the death plenty back in the system or keep it out like they have been. That is for the people to decide if the plenty should be back in roll for our justice service for our major convicts who committed major crimes against the American courts. The death plenty could do good again in the state of Nebraska to stop our major preps and I could stop the government from wasting so much tax payer money on supporting the prisons and people who doesn’t need to be granted a second chance in society.

Soon after death, anywhere from two to six hours after passing, an event called rigor mortis begins. Rigor mortis is the third stage of death. Rigor mortis is the stiffening or tensing of muscles after death. It is what causes a deceased person's eyelids to open. Rigor mortis is caused by the contraction of muscles in the body immediately after death. It starts with long, narrow bundles of cells that form muscle tissue. These cells build up electric potential by actively pumping out calcium ions. A neuron will release a signal, and when the muscle cells receive it, they open up the calcium channels in their cell membranes. The calcium ions will then rush out through the cell membranes due to the difference in voltage inside and outside of the cell. “Calcium ions will interact with actin and myosin filaments to cause muscle contraction.”(Source 6) Muscles will remain contracted, or in a contracted state, until ATP binds to myosin. When ATP binds to myosin, it releases the myosin and actin from each other, causing the muscles to release. However, when a person is dead they can no longer produce ATP, therefore, the muscles stay clenched. This causes the body to have a sickly stiff appearance. After the muscles have stiffened, the body moves on to the next stage of death.

IN 1662 a London haberdasher with an eye for numbers published the first quantitative account of death. John Graunt tallied causes such as “the King’s Evil”, a tubercular disease believed to be cured by the monarch’s touch. Others seem uncanny, even poetic. In 1632, 15 Londoners “made away themselves”, 11 died of “grief” and a pair fell to “lethargy”.

There have been incredible stories of dead people waking up hours later alive and literarily kicking their way out of body bags in the morgue or stepping out of actual coffins.  There has been debates over how this could happen. How dead can a dead person be in order to be legitimately declared as dead and with no likelihood of the Lazarus effect happening? Some people in the medical community believe that death should not be treated as a single event but a process that involves the ceasing of different mechanisms. Apparently, having no pulse or breath does not immediately mean tissue and cells have also died. When the heart stops the tissue that makes up the heart gets deprived of oxygen and is subjected to a buildup of toxins that will gradually kill cells. It is only when all the cells have died that the body can technically be described as utterly lifeless. However, tissue and cell degradation can be stunted by a reduction in temperature. At lower temperatures cells can go into a sort of hibernation. This explains why people drowning in icy water can have faint heartbeat that's barely discernible that's because the body tries to conserve life as hard as possible. The medical community have always found cases like these confounding and they have searched for and come up with plausible scientific reasoning but science comes short in other