530 
POISONING BY MEANS OF SEA SALT. 
whole of the pericardic cavity, and which, instead of presenting 
its ordinary colour and consistence, was of a pale ash colour, and 
seemed to have undergone a kind of decomposition, so soft and 
little tenacious was its tissue become. 
The middle membrane of the arterial trunks was likewise dis- 
coloured, as was easily ascertained by cutting through the one 
within it. 
These latter lesions, in connexion with the fulness of the 
paunch, appeared to me quite sufficient to cause death, and the 
approach of night scarcely permitted me to enter into any ex- 
amination of the cerebro-spinal system. This, added to the dif- 
ficulty of procuring instruments and assistants, compelled me, 
however unwillingly, to abandon this portion of the examination. 
In the mean time, since no one lesion appeared to betray the 
existence of any chronic disease, it remained for us to endeavour 
to discover the immediate cause of this unforeseen death. Was 
it indigestion? The state of repletion in which we found the 
paunch appeared to me to favour this supposition. Was it a 
case of poisoning by marine salt, as the antecedent and the 
actual state of the animal would seem to indicate ? — and, sup- 
posing this latter to have been the cause, might it not have also 
determined the second, with which it was complicated ? 
In order to remove as much as possible the doubt on this point, 
which might during a legal examination have given rise to a host 
of objections more or less well founded, I filled a bottle with the 
fluid in which the alimentary mass was floating, and begged 
M. Delpit, chemist in Beaumont, to filtrate a portion of it, and 
then proceed to test it by hydro-chlorate of silver, which im- 
mediately produced a white, flaky, insoluble precipitate, that, in 
our opinion, proved the existence of salt in solution in the fluid. 
This circumstance was stated in my account of the matter, and 
the bottle containing the fluid which I had taken from the paunch 
was corked and sealed, and deposited with the magistrate, in 
order that the court might, if they pleased, repeat the experiment, 
and obtain new and perhaps more conclusive results than those 
arising from the investigations of M. Delpit and myself. 
M. Scot, before entering on the action which he intended 
bringing against the other parties, took the advice of some of the 
most eminent advocates in Bergerac, who were all unanimous in 
advising him to desist from his demand, stating that, first, the 
proofs of the supposed poisoning were not sufficiently established 
for a court to be enabled to proceed on them in a regular way ; 
and, secondly, that although the animal had died of indigestion, 
and this indigestion could only arise from the fault of the seller, 
there was no ground for annulling the sale, seeing that this case 
