Chapman’s death.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Nope. There is no mistaking warm for cold. If Phillips was uncertain about his ability to correctly establish warmth, all he had to do would be to feel his OWN skin for temperature. And it seems he was anything but uncertain - he was able to pick up on the remaining warmth under the intestines, remember.

Of course, Baxter was right: If the witnesses were correct, then Phillips was wrong. That is not exactly rocket science, is it? But why would we predispose that he WAS wrong, when the paper I posted tells us that it is unlikely in the extreme that he would have been?

Nope. There is no mistaking warm for cold.

I already provided a nineteenth century source which expressly stated that there is. That was Dr Taylor as cited by Dr Burman. Do you actually have a source which says that there is no mistaking warm for cold in a dead body?


If Phillips was uncertain about his ability to correctly establish warmth, all he had to do would be to feel his OWN skin for temperature.

Phillips was dead???? Have you already forgotten everything we've seen from people like Dr Seddon-Smith and others about the rapid heat loss at the body surface after death?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Some classic Fisherman quotes from this thread unsupported by any evidence or expert medical opinion:



" a person that has only been dead for an hour simply cannot be cold. It is physically impossible". (#786)


“There is no way that Chapman can have become all cold (but for that remaining heat that could only be sensed by putting the hands inside her abdominal cavity) in an hour only. It is way beyond the possibilities offered by the laws of physics”. (#629)


“People who have grown cold have been dead for many hours, medicos normally cite that they have been gone for 4-6 hours.” (#641)


“Bodies that have not been dead for more than an hour are not cold. End of.” (#652)


“no expert would agree that a body can grow cold to the touch in one hour only". (#739)


“..you quoted a medico who supposedly said that a cold body appeared to have been dead an hour only. No medico will say this, because coldness points to many hours of death.” (#786)


“… any doctor who claimed that a body that was cold to the touch had probably died within the hour was misrepresenting his profession or misquoted.” (#810)




Let’s have a look at some actual cases:


From the Globe , 23 March 1843

“Mr Charsley held another inquest the same day at Marlow, upon the body of a respectable watchmaker of that town, who had hung himself in his wood-house by means of a rope fastened to a beam. When he was discovered by his nephew his feet just reached the ground; but upon being cut down he was quite cold; and it was the opinion of the medical man that he must have been dead for at least an hour. Evidence was given of the unsound state of his mind, arising from a gradual fall off of his business; and the jury returned a verdict of "Insanity".


From The Dublin Medical Press, 23 April 1856

"Dr H. Kennedy said that...it was a remarkable fact that one body would be cold within an hour after death as another would be at the end of six."


From the Times, 6 March 1861

“Mr. Robert Fowler, surgeon, Bishopsgate-street, said on Friday afternoon his assistant, who had been called to see the deceased, returned with an empty bottle which had a strong smell of prussic acid. Witness went and saw the deceased. The body was cold, and the deceased appeared to have been dead about an hour.”





Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 21 December 1892

Dr. Verity said he was called to see the deceased on Friday night at nine o'clock. When he arrived he found her laid out on a sofa downstairs. She was quite dead.

The Coroner: How long had she been dead?

Dr. Verity: I should certainly think she had been dead twelve hours She may have been dead one hour and forward up to twelve hours. She was quite cold.

The Coroner: What, twelve hours?

Dr Verity: She may have been dead one hour and forward up to twelve hours. I express my opinion because I did not know the circumstances and I wish to be correct. Continuing, Dr Verity said: I found a slight contused wound on the left eye.

The Coroner: The left eye?

Dr. Verity: Yes.

A Juror: What is the maximum time it takes a body to get cold after death?

Dr. Verity: Science has not yet been able to fix that maximum.




Woolwich Gazette, 20 September 1910


[Inquest at Greenwich Coroner's Court by H.R. Oswald on unknown man found hanging in Greenwich Park]

“Dr Davies of Westcombe Park, spoke to being sent for. He arrived at the park at about 3.35pm., and found that the man had been dead for at least an hour. The body was quite cold, and there was a mark round the neck which could have been caused by the handkerchief produced. Death was due to asphyxia and compression of the veins of the neck. “


How much more proper evidence will it take for you do the honourable thing and give up this pointless and desperate quest to overturn the entirety of Forensic medicine simply to suit your own theory. The only people that agree with you are Fishy and The Baron! This really, really should bring it home to you Fish. Your credibility is plummeting daily and your posts are becoming noticeably more desperate.

[Fisherman]

Some classic Fisherman quotes from this thread unsupported by any evidence or expert medical opinion:



" a person that has only been dead for an hour simply cannot be cold. It is physically impossible". (#786)


“There is no way that Chapman can have become all cold (but for that remaining heat that could only be sensed by putting the hands inside her abdominal cavity) in an hour only. It is way beyond the possibilities offered by the laws of physics”. (#629)


“People who have grown cold have been dead for many hours, medicos normally cite that they have been gone for 4-6 hours.” (#641)


“Bodies that have not been dead for more than an hour are not cold. End of.” (#652)


“no expert would agree that a body can grow cold to the touch in one hour only". (#739)


“..you quoted a medico who supposedly said that a cold body appeared to have been dead an hour only. No medico will say this, because coldness points to many hours of death.” (#786)


“… any doctor who claimed that a body that was cold to the touch had probably died within the hour was misrepresenting his profession or misquoted.” (#810)




Let’s have a look at some actual cases:


From the Globe , 23 March 1843

“Mr Charsley held another inquest the same day at Marlow, upon the body of a respectable watchmaker of that town, who had hung himself in his wood-house by means of a rope fastened to a beam. When he was discovered by his nephew his feet just reached the ground; but upon being cut down he was quite cold; and it was the opinion of the medical man that he must have been dead for at least an hour. Evidence was given of the unsound state of his mind, arising from a gradual fall off of his business; and the jury returned a verdict of "Insanity".


From The Dublin Medical Press, 23 April 1856

"Dr H. Kennedy said that...it was a remarkable fact that one body would be cold within an hour after death as another would be at the end of six."


From the Times, 6 March 1861

“Mr. Robert Fowler, surgeon, Bishopsgate-street, said on Friday afternoon his assistant, who had been called to see the deceased, returned with an empty bottle which had a strong smell of prussic acid. Witness went and saw the deceased. The body was cold, and the deceased appeared to have been dead about an hour.”





Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 21 December 1892

Dr. Verity said he was called to see the deceased on Friday night at nine o'clock. When he arrived he found her laid out on a sofa downstairs. She was quite dead.

The Coroner: How long had she been dead?

Dr. Verity: I should certainly think she had been dead twelve hours She may have been dead one hour and forward up to twelve hours. She was quite cold.

The Coroner: What, twelve hours?

Dr Verity: She may have been dead one hour and forward up to twelve hours. I express my opinion because I did not know the circumstances and I wish to be correct. Continuing, Dr Verity said: I found a slight contused wound on the left eye.

The Coroner: The left eye?

Dr. Verity: Yes.

A Juror: What is the maximum time it takes a body to get cold after death?

Dr. Verity: Science has not yet been able to fix that maximum.




Woolwich Gazette, 20 September 1910


[Inquest at Greenwich Coroner's Court by H.R. Oswald on unknown man found hanging in Greenwich Park]

“Dr Davies of Westcombe Park, spoke to being sent for. He arrived at the park at about 3.35pm., and found that the man had been dead for at least an hour. The body was quite cold, and there was a mark round the neck which could have been caused by the handkerchief produced. Death was due to asphyxia and compression of the veins of the neck. “


How much more proper evidence will it take for you do the honourable thing and give up this pointless and desperate quest to overturn the entirety of Forensic medicine simply to suit your own theory. The only people that agree with you are Fishy and The Baron! This really, really should bring it home to you Fish. Your credibility is plummeting daily and your posts are becoming noticeably more desperate.

I don´t need any more of this at all. Nor does anybody else. We KNOW that bodies do not turn cold in an hour only, and so we may safely throw these cases in the dustbin as mistakes by the medicos. Of course, in cases where somebody says that a completely cold body has been dead for at least an hour, he or she WILL be correct. Nota bene that they do not say that they find it likely that the body has been dead for an hour only. The same thing applies for Phillips - saying at least two hours does not mean that two hours is the suggested time of death.

Look, for example, at the example with "Dr Verity" (herm) - he says "She may have been dead one hour and forward up to twelve hours. I express my opinion because I did not know the circumstances and I wish to be correct." Since he knows nothing about the circumstances, he makes the call 1-12 hours. If you think that a one hour dead person will have the same core temperature as a twelve hour dead person, you need to do some little reading up.

The examples you present are all along these lines. And we can exclude in all cases that death had occurred within an hour in any of them if the body was quite cold. Once again, it is physically impossible for a body to loose all detectable warmth in an hour only.

So why would not Phillips do the same mistake, you ask. I would say partly because he was a very experienced medico (which I very much doubt the ones in your examples were) and partly because we know that a very rapid cooling of a body will not produce any rigor - it will slow it down or even halt it.

Of course, freak thinking will be accompanied by freak examples. it was to be expected, and the one result is that you show off your ignorance when you accept these cases as true representations of how bodies have grown cold in one hour only. None of them did. But Google on, by all means. It´s entertaining enough.

[Fisherman]

You throwing smoke Fisherman. The paper and the question it investigates has nothing to do with estimating the ToD by body temperature in even the remotest sense. To use body temperature as an estimator of ToD (and it's not considered a great one even when done properly), you have to use a thermometer and measure the internal core temperature, you simply cannot do it by measuring the surface temperature at the skin. Dr. Phillips did not use a thermometer, and he did not measure the internal body temperature, so he has not taken the measurements required to make any kind of reliable estimate of ToD. It's not enough to detect "colder than me" even, he needs an exact reading as being out by a degree or two changes the estimated time plus or minus 40 minutes to an hour 20, pending on which way he errs. The surface skin temperature is meaningless, no matter how magic his hands are.

He would also have had to factor in that in this case the body cavity has been cut open, which will greatly change the rate of internal body heat loss (so the fact he felt some warmth under the intestines, if we're going by feel, actually might suggest an earlier time than he estimated - but since we don't know what that temperature was either, we only know she wasn't uniformly cold. But we don't know anything about the temperatures either at the skin or under the intestines, only that one was warmer than the other, and that a body laying outside on a cold day feels cold to the touch - but a living person who comes in out of the cold and who wasn't wearing gloves will also feel cold to the touch because the surface temperature doesn't tell you anything. You can't estimate ToD from those data. And the paper you're looking at has nothing what so ever to do with estimating the actual temperature, it's about detecting differences, but it's actual temperatures that are required, and they have to taken in a specified way, and then other factors (body mass, temperature of the surrounding air, surface area, and other such things) have to be included and then the maths are done. Touching the arm doesn't cut it. And the paper your tossing about is irrelevant for this topic.

- Jeff

The paper concerns itself with how close temoperatures hand palpation can tell apart. That is monumentally important here, because it is the very thing we are discussing: Could Phillips tell a warm body from a cold one or not?

We all know that core temperature taken by thermometer yelds other results than hand palpation, it´s nothing new.

And yes, Pjhillips knew that he had to factor in the damages and the temperature. This we know because he said so at the inquest. He took height for it when he offered two hours as a minimum. Normally, he would not have done so, because he was well aware that body warmth can be detected for three hours or more in the normal case.

The only smoke throwed around is the effort to sweep the paper under tha carpet. Too late for that now.

[Fisherman]

I'm not relying on Steve, just pointing out that he disagreed with you. Whether you are better able to understand the article that he is, or vice versa, is something on which I can make no constructive comment. It's simply that there is a strong difference of opinion that needs a definitive resolution, and the possibility that three witnesses outweighs his estimated time of death is a legitimate consideration until we have one. Personally, I haven't allowed Baxter's comments about Phillips to prejudice my opinion at all.

It is a much less legitimate consideration once we know that trained personnel will in nineteen cases out of twenty be able to tell differing temperatures of three degrees or more apart, just as they in fifteen cases out of twenty can tell one- or two degree differences apart. That is. not to say that we have full certainty, but the odds are very much against the witnesses in my book.

Many more people than Steve disagree with me, by the way... but I take heart in how I am quite confident that they are wrong.

[Fisherman]

Dear Fisherman. We do have experts that actually said that the technique used by Phillips (estimating time of death based on temperature) is so unreliable as to be unsafe.

And they are correct. I thought I had made that clear?

Therefore, by extension, they are saying that no reliance can be placed on the TOD estimation provided by Phillips (since he used such a technique).

No, that does not follow. If we say that it is life-threatening to climb Mount Everest, that does not mean it is life-thretening to climb a molehill. It is all about the difficulties involved in the task at hand, and a technique that cannot establish factor A with any ceraiinty may well be able to establish factor B with great exactitude. So the extension you blithely suggest cannot be accepted.

Not only are the authors of this advice experts, they are the training and professional body for all pathologists working in the UK and have issued guidance telling pathologists to not give the impression to police authorities that they could even provide a window in which death likely occurred using this technique, as the technique is not capable of providing reliable information.

Once again the technique cannot be relied upon to provide an exact TOD. But where do your experts say that we may rely on how a trained medico is anywhere near likely to mistake warm bodies for long dead, cold ones?

Of course this does not mean Phillips was wrong, but in light of contradictory information provided by witnesses, Phillips estimate must be considered weak given the technique he used is known not to be reliable.

The technique he used is quite reliable when it comes to telling cold from warm.

[Fisherman]

My responses in blue....twaddle in black


I have no problems acknowledging that trying to establish a TOD by way of hand palpation must always result in a guess.

I’ve already provided a source in this thread that the time-honoured method of checking a corpse for warmth is with the back of the hand. Do you have ANY evidence that medics have ever established TOD “by way of hand palpation”? If not, can you please stop discussing hand palpation in the context of establishing a TOD.


Conversely, a bdoy will start feeling cold to the touch after 4-6 hours, once more generally speaking.

Human bodies can still cold to the touch while alive! Your claim that this happens after 4-6hours is palpable nonsense for which you’ve never provided a source, and, I might add, it contradicts the estimate provided by Dr Phillips!


This means (and this is of course totally obvious) that what makes the body feel cold to the touch is a drop in temperature in the body core.

It’s not obvious. It’s totally false. What makes the body feel cold to the touch is loss of heat at the body surface.


And before I presented the paper I posted on hand palpation, there was no scientific material at hand that offered a solution to that question. But now there is. There is a less than 5 per cent likelihood that trained therapists will miss out on a temperature difference of 3 degrees or more.
When Phillips said that the body was cold to the touch, he would have made this kind of a mistake - or worse - if the body was in fact warm..

So you are now using that irrelevant paper, which discusses the significance of the ability of modern therapists to better assess the temperature difference between two pads in controlled temperature conditions by using hand palpation, as evidence that Dr Phillips had magical ability to be able to overcome human biology and accurately assess by touch on a cold night whether a still relatively warm but rapidly cooling body was “cold” or not? You have sunk to the very lowest depth that it is possible to sink in your obsessive desire to frame Lechmere for the murder of Chapman.


And it WOULD have been warm a mere hour after death. There is no telling exactly HOW warm, buyt warm it would have been.

That may or may not be true but would it have FELT warm? That’s the point. You’ve never provided any evidence or source to support the claim that it MUST have felt warm and I’ve provided plenty against. In any case, Payne-James tells us that it is "useless" to provide an indication of time of death from feeling whether the body is warm or cold.


Phillips is unlikely in the extreme to have judged a body dead for one hour only as cold to the touch if it was only one hour dead.


That is no more than your ill informed opinion with no source provided for it. It’s a circular argument in any case. You are basically saying that Phillips was right because he was right. Payne-James has told us that judging a body by touch is a useless method to indicate time of death. Your claim that Phillips is "unlikely" to have got it wrong is based on voodoo magic and blind faith, not science.


This was also accepted by the Lancet at the time, for example, just as it became the stance of the police. The area that needs to be bridged by accepting a mistake on Phillips´ behalf is quite simply way to large.


Neither the Lancet nor the police made any comment on whether Phillips was or was not likely to have correctly judged a body dead for an hour or not. The police wouldn’t have had a clue. Phillips qualified his opinion in any case, accepting that some factors could have accelerated cooling. The experienced coroner decided that those factors did accelerate cooling and determined that Chapman was probably killed an hour prior to Phillips' examination.

Once again you are mistaken. The twaddle is all blue.

[Fisherman]

He didn’t say those words. He actually qualified his opinion and accepted that TOD could have been 5.30.

You are simply making things up.

More twaddle in blue. Phillips knew quite well that a body will be warm enough for a medico to feel it up to three hours or more after death. When you claim that I make things up, you are actually making things up.

[Fisherman]

No, I think you need to read your paper again and understand that palpation has nothing to do with estimating time of death by a pathologist.[/SIZE]

That is perhaps the most remarkable sentence out here yet. Palpation is the name of the very method the victorian doctors used in 1888. If you are telling us that todays pathologists will use a thermometer, you really could have saved us the pain of having to read something everybody already knew.

Try red. Or green. Blue seems to make you say stupid things.

[PaulB]

It is a much less legitimate consideration once we know that trained personnel will in nineteen cases out of twenty be able to tell differing temperatures of three degrees or more apart, just as they in fifteen cases out of twenty can tell one- or two degree differences apart. That is. not to say that we have full certainty, but the odds are very much against the witnesses in my book.

Many more people than Steve disagree with me, by the way... but I take heart in how I am quite confident that they are wrong.

It would indeed be a much less legitimate consideration if we knew that Dr Phillips was able to do as you describe and if what you describe indicates the probable time of death, but I'm afraid that in light of the disagreement you need independent and expert corroboration for what you confidently believe to be true.

[Fisherman]

It would indeed be a much less legitimate consideration if we knew that Dr Phillips was able to do as you describe and if what you describe indicates the probable time of death, but I'm afraid that in light of the disagreement you need independent and expert corroboration for what you confidently believe to be true.

Well, the paper I posted is clear on how palpation is a method that allows for identifying subtle diffrences in temperature, so that is five experts telling us that what has been claimed by Herlock Sholmes et al was never true. Plus I have of course provided lots of material that tells us that rigor will not set in quickly in cold conditions and that the temperature of the human body will not drop muych - if anything - during the first hour of death. That is material that weighed together points very clearly in favour of what I say.

Finding a paper or thesis on how well Phillips performed on the night in question will not be possible. We can only look at the facts and how different sources report their finds and extrapolate to try and find what is the likeliest solution to the issue at hand, and since every medical parameter that is called upon by those who dislike Phillips are parameters that come into play in freak circumstances, more or less, and since the only evidence pointing to Phillips possiblt being wrong is three shaky and uncertain witnesses, I am fine with accepting that this is as far as the evidence takes us.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I don´t need any more of this at all. Nor does anybody else. We KNOW that bodies do not turn cold in an hour only, and so we may safely throw these cases in the dustbin as mistakes by the medicos. Of course, in cases where somebody says that a completely cold body has been dead for at least an hour, he or she WILL be correct. Nota bene that they do not say that they find it likely that the body has been dead for an hour only. The same thing applies for Phillips - saying at least two hours does not mean that two hours is the suggested time of death.

Look, for example, at the example with "Dr Verity" (herm) - he says "She may have been dead one hour and forward up to twelve hours. I express my opinion because I did not know the circumstances and I wish to be correct." Since he knows nothing about the circumstances, he makes the call 1-12 hours. If you think that a one hour dead person will have the same core temperature as a twelve hour dead person, you need to do some little reading up.

The examples you present are all along these lines. And we can exclude in all cases that death had occurred within an hour in any of them if the body was quite cold. Once again, it is physically impossible for a body to loose all detectable warmth in an hour only.

So why would not Phillips do the same mistake, you ask. I would say partly because he was a very experienced medico (which I very much doubt the ones in your examples were) and partly because we know that a very rapid cooling of a body will not produce any rigor - it will slow it down or even halt it.

Of course, freak thinking will be accompanied by freak examples. it was to be expected, and the one result is that you show off your ignorance when you accept these cases as true representations of how bodies have grown cold in one hour only. None of them did. But Google on, by all means. It´s entertaining enough.

We KNOW that bodies do not turn cold in an hour only, and so we may safely throw these cases in the dustbin as mistakes by the medicos.

No, we do not KNOW this. I repeat that human bodies can feel cold while alive. This is well known. In such cases, what do you think they are going to feel like an hour after death?


Of course, in cases where somebody says that a completely cold body has been dead for at least an hour, he or she WILL be correct

But what does “completely cold” mean? If a person feels completely cold while alive, they are going to feel completely cold an hour after death aren’t they?


If you think that a one hour dead person will have the same core temperature as a twelve hour dead person, you need to do some little reading up.

No, Fisherman you are misunderstanding as usual? Dr Verity said nothing about the “core temperature”. He just said the body was cold. Quite correctly, he said that this means that the deceased could have been dead between an hour and 12 hours. Even more correctly, he could have said it could have been just about any time between her death and his examination.

The examples you present are all along these lines. And we can exclude in all cases that death had occurred within an hour in any of them if the body was quite cold. Once again, it is physically impossible for a body to loose all detectable warmth in an hour only.

That’s not true. You’ve never provided a source to support this.

But it misses the point anyway. You said that a medic would never say that a cold body was murdered an hour earlier. The examples provided show that, as usual, you were wrong.


So why would not Phillips do the same mistake, you ask. I would say partly because he was a very experienced medico (which I very much doubt the ones in your examples were) and partly because we know that a very rapid cooling of a body will not produce any rigor - it will slow it down or even halt it.

But aside from the fact that he didn’t have magic hands and therefore couldn’t accurately tell whether a dead body was cold or not, he was operating in the nineteenth century when not only were all the variables that could accelerate body cooling not known but it also wasn’t known that it the perceived warmth of a body to touch is useless as an indicator of time of death.

It’s also untrue to say that a very rapid cooling of a body will not produce rigor in all circumstances. We’ve already seen that a cut throat (sudden hemorrhage) and wasting disease will accelerate rigor.


Of course, freak thinking will be accompanied by freak examples.

Produce a single expert in forensic pathology who says that accelerated cooling and accelerated rigor is a “freak” event. It’s well known that there are variables which will produce accelerated cooling and rigor which is why forensic pathologists say that body cooling and rigor should NOT be used to estimate time of death.

How many times have I asked you to produce this evidence?

Probably half a dozen.

Have you produced it yet?

NO, because it doesn’t exist.

[Herlock Sholmes]

The paper concerns itself with how close temoperatures hand palpation can tell apart. That is monumentally important here, because it is the very thing we are discussing: Could Phillips tell a warm body from a cold one or not?

We all know that core temperature taken by thermometer yelds other results than hand palpation, it´s nothing new.

And yes, Pjhillips knew that he had to factor in the damages and the temperature. This we know because he said so at the inquest. He took height for it when he offered two hours as a minimum. Normally, he would not have done so, because he was well aware that body warmth can be detected for three hours or more in the normal case.

The only smoke throwed around is the effort to sweep the paper under tha carpet. Too late for that now.

The paper concerns itself with how close temoperatures hand palpation can tell apart. That is monumentally important here, because it is the very thing we are discussing: Could Phillips tell a warm body from a cold one or not?

That’s a non-sequitur. You move from hand palpation to Phillips in one fell swoop. Where is the evidence that Phillips would have even contemplated palpating Chapman’s dead body? And if he did, how would being able to assess differences in temperature between different parts of the body have enabled him to accurately assess whether her dead body was cold or not? And even if he did manage that, what possible use would that information have been to him to indicate the time of Chapman’s death when Payne-James tells us, and you have agreed, that this method is useless in indicating time of death and should not be relied on?

[Herlock Sholmes]

More twaddle in blue. Phillips knew quite well that a body will be warm enough for a medico to feel it up to three hours or more after death. When you claim that I make things up, you are actually making things up.

Phillips knew quite well that a body will be warm enough for a medico to feel it up to three hours or more after death. When you claim that I make things up, you are actually making things up.

All you are doing there is using Phillips to support himself (although you are actually arguing with him because his time estimate was at least two hours, not three!). The whole point is that Phillips in 1888 didn’t have sufficient knowledge to be able to do what he was trying to do. That’s why Payne-James says that his method of assessing time of death was useless.

[Herlock Sholmes]

That is perhaps the most remarkable sentence out here yet. Palpation is the name of the very method the victorian doctors used in 1888. If you are telling us that todays pathologists will use a thermometer, you really could have saved us the pain of having to read something everybody already knew.

Try red. Or green. Blue seems to make you say stupid things.

Palpation is the name of the very method the victorian doctors used in 1888

Could you produce some evidence for this please in the context of touching a dead body to assess body temperature? Just one bit of evidence will do.

In the paper you cited, the subjects were required to palpate “with the palmar surface of the dominant hand”. It was a specific form of palpation.

I remind you that I’ve already provided a source which says the traditional method of checking a dead body for warmth was the back of the hand.


If you are telling us that todays pathologists will use a thermometer, you really could have saved us the pain of having to read something everybody already knew.

No, I’m telling you they just used touch. Are you using “palpate” as a synonym for “touch”? Because to palpate is what a doctor does on a living body during a medical examination to assess for certain specific conditions which only apply to their living patients. They don’t "palpate" dead bodies. If you mean “touch” just use that word.

Do I have to explain everything to you?