Brief Answer: Body begins to cool shortly after death Detailed Answer: Hi Normally,body begins to cool shortly after death know as ALGOR MORTIS.During life, there is a balance between heat production and heat loss.After death body begins to loose heat by conduction,convention,and radiation till it reaches in equilibrium with the surroundings.The temperature of the body is recorded by a chemical thermometer(thanatometer) and not by clinical thermometer. There are condition where heat may be retained or even be increased in first 2 hours after death like sunstroke,tetanus,strychnine poisoning,known as postmortem caloricity. The rate of cooling depends on-1.Age and condition of the body.2.Mode of death. 3.Surroundings,and 4.Environmental temperature. The whole detail can be found in the "Parikh's textbook of medical jurisprudence,forensic medicine and toxicology" at page number 3.7-3.9 under section 3.Take care and i shall be glad to help you for any further query. Regards,

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Brief Answer: After going through journal/book's -you are right Detailed Answer: Hi Pleased to see you with your query.I have gone through the books which i have and through online journal.The information which you have shared with me is true,i can cofirm that.Almost all have to say that the cooling of a human body is best represented by a sigmoid curve rather than exponential curve,when temperature is plotted against time. Thus, there is an initial maintenance of body temperature which may last for some hours - the so-called "temperature plateau"or "isothermic phase" - followed by a relatively linear rate of cooling which subsequently slows rapidly as the body approaches the environmental temperature.The initial lag in cooling was first described by Rainy,Regius Professor of Forensic Medicine in Glasgow, in 1869. (It was independently described in the German literature in the same year by Seydeler). The post mortem temperature plateau is physically determined and not a special feature of the dead human body. Post mortem heat production is said to contribute approximately one-sixth to the plateau. Any inert body which has a low thermal conductivity has such a plateau during its first cooling phase. It is this plateau which produces the sigmoid shape of the resultant cooling curve. The post mortem temperature plateau generally lasts 1/2 to one hour but may persist as long as three hours and some authorities claim that it may persist as long as five hours . Where there is a fulminating infection, e.g. septicaemia, the body temperature may continue to rise for some hours after death as also in pontine bleed and sunstroke. These were the findings of Department of Forensic Medicine, University of Dundee .As far as the textbook by Dolinah, Matshes, and Lew is concern,i am sorry. I hope this whole discussion satisfy your exciting query.If you have any further query do share or we may close the discussuion as of now and please rate the exciting discussion.

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