Internal hypostases occur in the brain, in the sinuses and veins of the pia mater of the posterior hemispheres, even after death from hæmorrhage. They must not be confounded with cerebral hyperæmia. In the lungs, hypostases are of constant occurrence, and are carefully to be distinguished from the signs of ante-mortem pulmonary congestion and pneumonia. In the intestines and kidneys, hypostases are also noticed. In the heart we find no hypostasis, but clots, or “cardiac polypi,” which are the coagulated fibrine of the blood, formed in most cases after death. Their presence proves that coagulation of the blood may take place after death. The last sign of the earliest stage of death is the _rigor mortis_. It passes from above downwards, beginning on the back of the neck and lower jaw, passing on into the facial muscles, the front of the neck, the chest, the upper extremities, and last of all, the lower extremities. It begins variously after eight, ten, or twenty hours, and may last from one to nine days. In the mature new-born infant it is feeble and very transitory. A low temperature, and the existence of alcoholization, favor the long duration of cadaveric rigidity. A frozen body is stiff as a board from head to foot, whereas in rigor mortis the extremities, particularly at the elbows and knees, preserves a certain amount of mobility. A body in which only the signs thus far mentioned are present, may be presumed to have been dead from two to three days at the longest. =B.= _The Process of Putrefaction._ The progress of putrefaction is modified by the following conditions: By age. The bodies of new-born children putrefy more rapidly than others; those of very aged persons much more slowly. By the condition of the body. Fat, flabby and lymphatic corpses putrefy more quickly than lean ones, for an abundance of fluid is very favorable to decomposition. By the kind of death. The process is rapid after death from exhausting diseases, from injuries attended with much mutilation, from suffocation, from narcotic poisons. It is slower after sudden death in healthy persons, after death from poisoning with phosphorus, sulphuric acid and alcohol. By the access of atmospheric air. Whatever prevents this, retards decomposition. Thus, bodies buried in the earth, or lying in water, or clothed, putrefy less rapidly than those exposed to the direct influence of the air. By the quantity of moisture, which in addition to its own, can and does reach the body from without. The more moisture, the more rapid the process. By the temperature of the air, or of the water in which the body is lying. “At a tolerably similar average of temperature, the degree of putrefaction present in a body after lying in the open air, for one week (or month), corresponds to that found in a body after lying in the water for two weeks (or months), or after lying in the earth in the usual manner for eight weeks (or months.”) (Caspar.)