Morgue - Types of Cold Chambers

Types of Cold Chambers

There are two types of mortuary cold chambers:

Positive temperature

Bodies are kept between 2°C (36°F) and 4°C (39°F). While this is usually used for keeping bodies for up to several weeks, it does not prevent decomposition, which continues at a slower rate than at room temperature.

Negative temperature

Bodies are kept at between -10 °C (14 °F) and -50 °C (-58 °F). Usually used at forensic institutes, particularly when a body has not been identified. At these temperatures the body is completely frozen and decomposition is very much reduced.

Read more about this topic:  Morgue

Famous quotes containing the words types of, types, cold and/or chambers:

    “... there are two types of happiness and I have chosen that of the murderers. For I am happy. There was a time when I thought I had reached the limit of distress. Beyond that limit, there is a sterile and magnificent happiness.”
    —Albert Camus (1913–1960)

    “The American man is a very simple and cheap mechanism. The American woman I find a complicated and expensive one. Contrasts of feminine types are possible. I am not absolutely sure that there is more than one American man.”
    —Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)

    “The graceless madness of her lips,
    Who was the powder-puff of life,
    Cannot rouge those cheeks nor warm
    His cold corpuscles back to strife.”
    —Allen Tate (1899–1979)

    “Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs
    ...
    Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
    Under the canopies of costly state,
    And lulled with sound of sweetest melody?”
    —William Shakespeare (1564–1616)