Abstract: The blood alcohol concentration(BAC) is an important evidence to determine the alcohol level at the time of death.But due to the postmortem synthesis and diffusion of alcohol,the cadaveric BAC can not always represent the original BAC at the time of death.It is a crucial problem to determine the origi-nal level in corpse.The article reviewed the following points: the distribution in corpse,and how to sam-ple,the influences on the diffusion of alcohol and putrefaction,the discussion about alcohol mass concen-tration measure methods.

Key words: forensic toxicology, ethanol, review[publication type], blood, cadaver