Tongue position and its relation to the cause of death and sequential stages of body decomposition observed during 608 forensic post-mortems.

The purpose of this study was to document tongue position and its relation to the cause of death and sequential stages of body decomposition, as observed during the routine forensic pathological examination of bodies. The sample of 608 included all bodies examined by the first and third authors during the period April 2016 to September 2016. Tongue position was recorded in all cases where position of the tongue could be visually determined.