A STUDIES OF CHANGES OF THE TEETH AS THE TIME ELAPSED SINCE DEATH

사후 경과시간에 따른 치아경조직의 변화에 관한 연구

When the men die, uniform changes progress. Many investigators have studied about the time after death, but it's very difficult to measure the time elapsed since death, particularly in highly decomposed or probably skeletonized bodies. But the teeth are very stable to the changes of physical and chemical properties and their changes are very slow. At this point of view, the author studied this theme as one of the pioneers in our country. In this study, the author observed the degree of the dentinal expansion and the crack of enamel and cementum of the teeth which had been extracted from December, 1983 to September, 1987. The teeth were extracted from the male and female who was 18 to 85 year old. The results are followed; 1. The degree of dentinal expansion increased rapidly until 7 months with high degree and then decreased slowly. 2. The equation of regression for representing x as the degree of the dentinal expansion and y as the time elapsed since death, is y = 29.43-1.13x (p<0.05) 3. The crack of the enamel surface seemed to begin at 1 year from extraction and to increase apparently before or after 20 months. 4. The crack of the cementum began at 3 months from extraction and dendrite crack began at 16 months from extraction. After this, the crack increase continuously and the rate of cracking were more rapid as compared with that of enamel. 5. It seems to be useful to measure the time elapsed since death using the degree of dentinal expansion and the crack of enamel and cementum, particularly in the old bodies after death.