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| | AllRefer.com - death (Pathology) - Encyclopedia |
 | | Somatic death is followed by a number of irreversible changes that are of legal importance, especially in estimating the time of death. |
 | | These include rigor mortis, livor mortis (discoloration of the body due to settling of blood), algor mortis (cooling of the body), autolysis (breakdown of tissue by enzymes liberated by that tissue after death), and putrefaction (invasion of the body by organisms from the gastrointestinal tract). |
 | | Brain death, which is now a legal condition in most states for declared death, requires that the following be absent for at least 12 hours: behavioral or reflex motor functions above the neck, including pupillary reflexes to testing jaw reflex, gag reflex, response to noxious stimuli, and any spontaneous respiratory movement. |
| reference.allrefer.com /encyclopedia/D/death.html (495 words) |
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