RESUMEN
Death by drowning is a major cause of unnatural death worldwide. It is therefore important to conduct forensic examination of immersed bodies following drowning, in order to determine the diagnosis of drowning, because no specific methods have been established thus far. Therefore, we performed a series of rat experiments to compare autopsy findings between seawater and fresh water drowning cases, which included the presence of pleural effusion and histologic findings of the lung. The results showed that the volume of pleural effusion increased in the seawater drowning group compared to the fresh water drowning group, and the total weight of lung was affected by the type of drowning medium and postmortem interval. However, histologic findings of the lung showed no significant difference between the 2 types of drowning mediums.