Postmortem intravascular red-blue discoloration resulting from hypostasis of blood is called what?

• A. Livor mortis
• B. Hypostasis
• C. Dehydration
• D. Agglutination

Answer: (A)

Postmortem lividity is the red-blue discoloration seen after death when blood settles under gravity in the dependent parts of the body. This pooling, driven by the lack of circulation, gives a characteristic purplish hue from deoxygenated blood in the venous vessels. The term hypostasis describes the process of that blood settling, which leads to livor mortis as the observable change. This sign starts to appear within a short time after death and becomes fixed after several hours, and its pattern can reveal whether the body was moved after death. The other terms don’t describe this discoloration: dehydration is about fluid loss from tissues, and agglutination is clumping of red blood cells, not a postmortem skin color change.