The significance of the settling of blood into dependent and soft tissues as evidence for death by throttling and choking (author's transl)]

14 fresh cadavers of adult persons were placed with the head or body tilted in atypical positions 3 to 65 hours after death. The persons concerned were neither asphyxiated nor had they suffered cranial trauma. Hypostasis in the head and neck occurred more rapidly and intensively the deeper the cranial parts of the body were placed. In the simulated cadaver positions, artificial ecchymoses were observed in only a few places, mainly in the eyelids, the conjunctiva, the galea and the temporal muscles except when the head was vertically downwards. Just as with the postmortem haematomas, the hypostatic settling to the plane of the heart was decisive.     

Quantitative investigation of the amino acid levels in putrefying liver (author's transl)]

To elucidate the post-mortem proteolysis we investigated the behaviour of the free amino acids in rotting liver homogenates by means of two-dimensional thin-layer chromatography and reflection densitometry. The post-mortem alterations of the amino acid levels are characterized mostly by a two-phase increase with maxima at the end of the first and after the third week. A few amino acids showed only little changes hardly above the physiological intra-cellular levels. Anaerobic rat experiments and experiences with antibiotic treatment give rise to the supposition that increasing amino acid concentrations indicate a predominance of proteolytic activities over aminoacid catabolism. In the beginning autoenzymes are prevalent, while afterwards bacterial proteases probably predominate. The transient regression about the second and thrid week is interpreted as the effect of a temporarily intensified amino acid degradation by foreign enzymes (maximal bacterial growth).