90 EFFECTS OF 



in St. Bartholomew's hospital, who had taken 

 arsenic, recovered of the immediate symptoms, 

 but died at the end of four or five days. On ex- 

 amination after death, extensive ulcerations were 

 found of the mucous membrane of the stomach 

 and intestines, which we can hardly doubt to 

 have been the cause of death. 



It is an important matter of inquiry, as con- 

 nected with judicial medicine, how far may the 

 examination of the body, after death, enable us 

 to decide, whether an animal has died of the 

 effects of arsenic ? On this subject, however, 

 I have only a few remarks to make. 



The inflammation from arsenic, occupying in 

 general the whole of the stomach and intestine, 

 is more extensive than that from any other 

 poison with which I am acquainted. It does not, 

 as I have already stated, affect the pharynx or 

 oesophagus, and this circumstance distinguishes 

 it from the inflammation occasioned by the 

 actual contact of irritating applications. 



In my experiments I have not obtained much 

 information from the examination of the contents 

 of the stomach after death. When arsenic has 

 been taken in substance, small particles of it are 

 frequently found entangled in the mucus, or in 

 the extravasated blood ; but where this was not 

 the case, I have never known, in an animal 

 capable of vomiting, that arsenic could be de- 

 tected in the stomach afterwards. As some sub- 

 stances, when taken internally, are separated 

 from the blood very soon afterwards with the 



