fall to pieces vs putrefy

fall to pieces

verb
  • To be emotionally devastated; to break down. 

  • To break into a number of segments; to collapse. 

putrefy

verb
  • To make morbid, carious, or gangrenous. 

  • To corrupt; to make foul. 

  • To become filled with a pus-like or bile-like substance. 

  • To reach an advanced stage of decomposition. 

  • To become gangrenous. 

How often have the words fall to pieces and putrefy occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )