Energy loss due to radiation in postmortem cooling. Part B: Energy balance with respect to radiation.

With the help of the law of Stefan and Boltzmann and a model for the cooling of exposed skin derived from the data of Lyle and Cleveland, the radiation energy loss ER can be calculated according to the following formula: [formula in text] where epsilon represents the emissivity of the skin (0.98), sigma the Stefan-Boltzmann constant, AR the radiating surface area, TS(0) the skin temperature at death, TE the environmental temperature and Z' = 0.1017 the gradient of the skin temperature curve. Additionally, an energy loss due to conduction and convection EC has to be taken into account. Comparing the energy losses due to radiation, conduction and convection with the decrease ET of the thermal energy in the body, calculated from mean heat capacity (3.45 kJ/(kg degrees K)), body mass and decrease of mean body temperature, there is a surplus of energy in the very early postmortem period, which can be explained only by an internal source of energy EI. Alltogether the following balance equation can be formulated: ET + EI = ER + EC Since the body temperature decreases in the early postmortem period, EI can be estimated by: EI(t) > or = max (ER(t) - ET(t), 0). The values obtained range up to 500 kJ for a medium sized (175 cm), medium weight (75 kg) body at an environmental temperature of 5 degrees C and are compatible with estimations of Lundquist for supravital energy production by breakdown of glycogen.