[Postmortem changes in skin color]

By the employment of the colorimetric method statistically significant objective data on postmortem changes in the colour of different parts of the skin have first been obtained. Histological and spectrophotometric studies were carried out in order to elucidate the causes of these changes. The colour of the cadavar skin as well as the colour of the human skin in life depends on primary pigments: hemoglobin, melanin, carotene and melanoid. A certain role is likely to be played by the main structural proteins of the derma and epidermis: collagen and keratin. The cadavar skin colour differs in variations of the dominant wave length and reflectance which are associated with postmortem redistribution of the blood under the effect of the gravity and qualitative transformation of oxyhaemoglobin into reduced haemoglobin. The distribution of melanin, carotene, and melanoid does not differ from that in life. The most specific index of the amount of melanin is the purity of colour and not reflectance.