280 Notices respecting New Boohs. 



cept that the vascularity had disappeared, the membranes and the 

 appearances in them remained in the same state. A similar case 

 has been recorded by Metzger. It is that of an old man who died 

 after six hours' illness, and in whose stomach three drachms of 

 arsenic were found. The body had been kept ten days in February 

 before burial, and was disinterred eight days after that ; yet there 

 was not the slightest sign of putrefaction anywhere. A parallel 

 case was described by myself in the Edinburgh Medico-Chirurgical 

 Transactions." 



In a case of poisoning with arsenic examined by Dr. Borges, 

 Medical Inspector at Minden, fourteen weeks after death, " the 

 stomach and intestines were firm, of a grayish-white colour, and 

 contained evident crumbs of bread, while all the other organs in 

 the belly were pulpy, and the external parts adipocirous." So also 

 in a case which happened at Chemnitz in ] 726, " the skin was every- 

 where very putrid, but the stomach and intestines were perfectly 

 fresh. In the case of Warden, the appearances were precisely the 

 same. Three weeks after burial the Dundee inspectors found the 

 external parts much decayed ; and three weeks later, the stomach 

 and intestines were found by myself in a state of almost perfect 

 preservation. A striking experiment performed by Dr. Borges on 

 a rabbit will likewise illustrate admirably the fact now under con- 

 sideration. The rabbit was killed in less than a day with ten grains 

 of arsenic, and its body was buried for thirteen months in a moist 

 place under the eaves of a house. At the end of this period it was 

 found that the skin, muscles, cellular tissue, ligaments, and all the 

 viscera, except the alimentary canal, had disappeared, without 

 leaving a trace ; but the alimentary canal, from the throat to the 

 anus, along with the hair and the bare bones, was quite entire." 



But it is also maintained by some German writers that the pre- 

 servative influence of arsenic is not confined to the parts actually 

 in contact with it, but sometimes extends to the whole body ; and 

 Dr. Christison has quoted instances of the whole body, in animals 

 poisoned with arsenic, manifesting an unusually small tendency to 

 decay. But this point is not decided. The facts already men- 

 tioned show that the body often decays as usual, while the parts to 

 which arsenic had been actually applied are preserved ; nor are 

 those cases, in which the whole body remained entire, sufficiently 

 numerous to prove that the preservation was really produced by 

 arsenic, and not by accidental extraneous causes. Dr. Christison 

 closes his account of the subject with the following remarks : — 

 " Whatever credit is given to the opinion of the German medical 

 jurists, in favour of the preservative power of arsenic, the English 

 medical jurist will not lose sight of the fact, that in many instances 

 the body in this kind of poisoning has been found long after death 

 in so perfect a state as to admit of an accurate medico-legal in- 

 spection, and a successful chemical analysis. In one of his cases 

 Dr. Bachmann detected arsenic in the stomach fourteen months 

 after interment; and Dr. Borges had no difficulty in detecting it in 

 an animal after thirteen months." 



Mercury. 



