Postmortem blood and tissue changes for estimation of time of death

The present work was carried out in Department of Veterinary pathology, College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, OUAT, Bhubaneswar to study changes of different blood parameters in postmortem blood with respect to time passed since death. Postmortem changes of different body tissues like liver, heart, kidney etc. were also studied. Blood samples collected in EDTA vial were analysed for estimation of Hb, TEC, TLC and pH. Hb in postmortem blood had no correlation with time passed since death. But TEC, TLC and pH were strongly correlated with time passed since death. As time since death increased TLC as well as TEC decreased but pH of post-mortem blood increased. There were also some remarkable tissue changes occur in postmortem samples as time passed since death increased. These changes can help in rough approximation of time of death estimation.