The tepid carcass examinately reclines on my table
|
Its peculiar muscular activity, rigor mortis, works in
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my favor
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Determining PMI through rigid, bone-cracking means
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Postmortem rigidity occurs through the depletion of
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ATP...
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Adenosine triphosphate is required for muscle
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relaxation
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But metabolic activity continues after death and
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creates a reaction
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Lactid acid is spent and exhausts the store of
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glycogen
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Muscles go hard from the abnormal links between actin
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and myosin...
|
This maturating stiff...
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Becomes quite stiff...
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Positioning the corpse can be quite a Herculean task
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As I bend the crepitating unmalleable limbs with
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revolting cracks
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Obstinate appendages stubbornly give way under my
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dragoon efforts
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My aching muscles are overtaxed and pushed well passed
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discomfort...
|
...Paralytic legs, unflexing arms...
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...Carrion with all its frozen charm...
|
...Unmoving torso, intractable neck...
|
...Deplorable corpse a total wreck...
|
Between 2 and 12 hours is the solidifying time
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required
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For abductors and adductors to become unyieldingly
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mired
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It will take a day for outstretched extremities to
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acquiesce
|
Finally amenable to my adroit limb-wrenching finesse...
|
The lampooning hu-mannequin's muscle proteins are
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devoured
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As the taciturn body achieves maximal rigor in 12
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hours
|
12 hours more and the muscular fiber grudgingly give
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way
|
When the proteolytic enzymes in the lysosomes of
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muscle cells escape...
|
...Corpse piquantly olid...
|
...Now maceratedly flaccid...
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Barring rare cadaveric spasms, a PMI timeline can be
|
mapped
|
Factor in environmental variables and the effects they
|
can have
|
Ripening malodorous remains can speak from the grave
|
And tell us their time of death by how their muscles
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behave...
|
...Paralytic legs, unflexing arms...
|
...Carrion with all its frozen charm...
|
...Unmoving torso, intractable neck...
|
...Deplorable corpse a total wreck...
|
|
-----------------
|
Riggormortis Posthumous Muscular Rigidity
|
| The County Medical Examiners |
