In a former part of this work, it has been suggested that too much care cannot be used in handling the bodies of persons who have died of certain diseases, especially when their bodies are to be subjected to the embalming process, which operation is rendered extremely dangerous to the embalmer from the fact that the hands must, perforce, come into direct contact with the denuded tissues, the blood, or some vitiated secretion of the body. We shall, in the following chapter, find instances when the decomposition of certain parts of the body has taken place even before death. It is obvious that in such cases the utmost caution is necessary to avoid serious results. THROMBOSIS AND EMBOLISM. Sometimes during life, some portion of the body is in a condition of gangrene, that is, the tissues are not only dead, but decomposing. With the evolution of gases, the softening and liquefaction of the solid parts, and the development of minute organisms, either animal or vegetable. The bodies of persons who have died from such causes, _decompose with unusual rapidity_. The inner coats of the vessels are often stained with the coloring matter of the blood. The viscera are soft and flabby, the stomach may be swollen, and the kidneys congested and degenerated. People who have suppurating wounds or abscesses may, without much change in the wounds or abscesses, be seized with rigors followed by fever, become jaundiced and die. In such persons after death, the same tendency to rapid decomposition, and all the symptoms of the preceding cases are to be found. There is no way of accounting for the rapid decay in the preceding cases, except by supposing that the pus from the original wound or abscess in some way infects the system, and renders the tissues prone to putrefy. There is another modified condition of the body very different from the two preceding. Either in consequence of wounds, injuries, inflammations, abnormal conditions of the system, or changes in the venous walls, the blood may become coagulated during life and form thrombi in the veins. These thrombi may become organized, or they may soften, break down, and their fragments be carried into the circulation; by their mechanical action in obstructing the vessels, they produce extravasation of blood. By the irritative character of the thrombi themselves, they excite inflammatory action in the adjoining tissues; in this way are produced multiple abscesses. Therefore, we find in persons who die under such conditions, abscesses in the brain, heart, lungs, kidneys and intestines; further we may find purulent inflammation and abscesses in the connective tissues.