[Roentgen identification of unknown cadavers with advanced postmortem changes].

The postmortem changes in the bodies of two individuals were so advanced that the usual identification methods could not be applied; one had drowned and the other died by burning. Antemortem roentgenograms--up to 10 years old--and postmortem X-ray plates were compared and the bodies thus identified. This was possible because the skeleton shows individual, highly specific markers that do not change during life or after death.