Postmortale Entstehung von Alkoholen durch Fäulnis

Conclusion

In the first days post-mortem it must be expected that a new formation of ethyl-alcohol will be present but that no other alcohols can be detected. Seen quantitatively, only in a few samples have been formed acetone, isopropyl-alcohol, tert. butanol and n-propylalcohol in greater quantities. All other types of alcohol have been quantitatively always only within the range of trace elements.

When judging the bleeding of a dead body, where a suspicion exists that the ethyl-alcohol values are changed by putrefaction, it must be deducted in accordance with the said before, 0,1% from the analysis result for every two days of lying time after death, but altogether not more than 1,0‰

If gaschromatography-analysis results should be available to the medical expert, however, showing that only ethyl-alcohol has been proved, a deduction of only maximum 0,5% will be justified in our opinion.

For the sake of completeness it is emphasized that the ADH-values correspond with the gaschromatographic ethyl-alcohol values also then, where putrefactive alcohol is contained in the blood.