What REALLY Happens to a Body After Death

Almost everyone knows about death and the general idea of what happens to a person’s body. From information given from television shows, movies, and sometimes even personal experiences. But there are many commonly known myths that cause the true fact to become fogged and misunderstood.
One idea that even I thought to be true for until now it that the hair and nails continue to grow after that person has died. But this is only a visual effect caused but the shrinking of the skin scalp and cuticles. This shrinkage happens because the fluid is the body are drained for the capillaries and pool and the lower-lying parts of the body (usually the back of the abdomen, head and legs). This and many other things happen is a process called decomposition.

Decomposition occurs almost immediately after death. Like most deaths are described, the body goes limp when the person died. It isn’t until about three hours later that the body undergoes rigor mortis, which is the stiffening of the muscles. From information here, I found the not until twenty-four hours after death will the body have lost all it’s heat and then after three days the body looses the muscle stiffness.
Now comes the gruesome part, readers beware!
It the article I read it said that bacteria within the body begin to break it down. Starting with the pancreas, enzymes there cause self-digestion. Gasses like methane and hydrogen sulfide are emitted from the decomposing tissue along with a green substance. This gives the body its dreadful look and smell. The lungs also exude a fluid from the mouth and nose.

With all these different disgusting smells, many animals and especially insects are attracted; flies especially. Flies love to munch in a decaying body and then lay plenty of eggs because there is so much food. Maggots, which are the larvae of flies, contribute to most of the decomposition of bodies. Find out more about the contributions of bugs here.
Some other disgustingly gruesome things that have occurred after death are coffin births and the skin has blistered so much that at the slightest touch, it could fall off! A coffin birth, has to do with a deceased woman and her unborn child; where the fetus is expelled due to the bloating of the mother’s corpse. This bloating is caused buy a gas that created but the bacteria and enzymes that breakdown the body. This gas also causes the tongue to swell and protrude as well as the eyes to bulge out of their sockets.
Oh the beauty of death. Well, at least we know for sure that we should all end up in doing the same thing in the end.

Works Cited:
Scheve, Tom. "How Body Farms Work" 18 June 2008. HowStuffWorks.com. 14 November 2011.

Edmonds, Molly. "How Dying Works" 12 January 2009. HowStuffWorks.com. 14 November 2011.