OF THE LITEfi OF A DIODON. 215 



smaU quantities of brandy and ammonia were exhibited, after 

 which he fell asleep and awoke perfectly well. 



" Sept. 5th. — A^ post mortem examination was made to-day. The 

 bodies exhibited no unusual appearance. There was purple lividity 

 in the depending parts, but not to a remarkable degree. Masti- 

 cated and partly digested food, rejected from the stomach or 

 gullet, flowed from the movith. The stomach and heart of the 

 purser's steward were examined more particularly, but only the 

 stomach of the boatswain. 



" The sui'face of the thoracic and abdominal viscera iu both 

 appeared perfectly healthy. The stomachs were externally natural, 

 moderately distended with food ; they contained a quantity of 

 pultaceous food, nearly wholly reduced to the state of chyme. 

 Some had already passed tbe pylorus. This matter also pervaded 

 the gullet, as if there had been an attempt at rejection. There 

 was no vestige observed of anything like the poisonous substance 

 which had been swallowed. The mucous membrane surrounding 

 the cardiac orifice was of a deep purple colour — in the first case 

 higlily congested, which appearance extended some way along the 

 lesser arch, gradually diminishing as it receded from the cardiac 

 orifice ; minute ramifications of vessels were studded over this 

 part of the stomach, and on the ridge at the commencement of 

 the greater arch. Perhaps this state of congestion was not much 

 greater, even in the first case, than it would be in a healthy 

 stomach during the first process of digestion, but it was more 

 remarkable from the dark colour of the blood. In the right ven- 

 tricle of the heart there was a fibrinous clot, with a small quantity 

 of dark fluid blood ; the left ventricle was also moderately dis- 

 tended with dark fluid blood ; the muscular substance of the heart 

 was natural, and the muscular tissue throughout seemed firm, 

 florid, and healthy. 



(Signed) " Hugh Jameson, Surgeon." 



" The following is a translation from the German of the symp- 

 toms, as furnished to me by the surgeon of the ' Postilion ' : — 



" ' J. Kleinhaus, boatswaiu's mate, thirty-two years of age, and 

 J. Hansen, purser's steward, forty -three years of age, had partaken 

 at dinner-time, about twelve o'clock (in addition to ihe usual 

 ship's fare), of the liver of a fish. Scarcely ten minutes had 

 elapsed when I was called upon to afibrd medical assistance to 

 both, and observed the following symptoms. J. Kleinhaus lay 

 between decks, and could not raise himself without the greatest 



