88 EFFECTS OF 



that it may terminate in one or other of these 

 ways. 



I am disposed to believe that sloughing is very 

 seldom, if ever, the direct consequence of the 

 application of arsenic to the stomach or in- 

 testines. Arsenic applied to an ulcer will oc- 

 casion a slough ; but its action in doing this is 

 very slow. When I have applied the white oxyde 

 of arsenic to a wound, though the animal has 

 sometimes lived three or four hours afterwards, 

 and though violent inflammation has taken place 

 in the stomach and intestines, I have never seen 

 any preternatural appearance in the part to 

 which it was applied, except a slight effusion of 

 serum into the cellular membrane. The very 

 copious secretion of mucus and watery fluid 

 which arsenic speedily produces from the stomach 

 and intestines, separates it from actual contact 

 with the inner surface of these organs, even 

 though taken in large quantity and in substance ; 

 and, in animals which are capable of vomiting, 

 by much the greater part is rejected from the 

 stomach very soon after it has been taken in. 

 Hence, though a few particles of arsenic are 

 sometimes found entangled in the mucus, or in 

 the coagulum of extravasated blood, and ad- 

 hering to the inner surface of the stomach, I 

 have never seen it in such a quantity as might 

 be supposed capable of destroying the vitality of 

 the parts with which it had been in contact. In 

 one instance, where a dog had swallowed a large 

 quantity of arsenic in substance, a brown spot, 



