£2 $ Mr. Brqdie's Observations and Experiments 
justified in concluding, that the immediate cause of death was 
in both of these organs. As the effects produced appear to have 
been independent of absorption, we may presume that the 
heart, as well as the brain, was acted on through the medium 
of the nerves. 
That a sudden and violent injury of the stomach should be 
capable of thus speedily proving fatal is not surprising, when 
we consider the powerful sympathy between it, and the or- 
gans, on which life more immediately depends, and the exist- 
ence of which many circumstances in disease daily demon- 
strate to us. 
VII. 
The facts which have been stated, appear to lead to the fol- 
lowing conclusions respecting the action of the mineral poisons, 
which were employed in the foregoing experiments. 
1. Arsenic, the emetic tartar, and the muriate of barytes do 
not produce their deleterious effects until they have passed 
into the circulation. 
2. All of these poisons occasion disorder of the functions of 
the heart, brain, and alimentary canal; but they do not all 
affect these organs in the same relative degree. 
3. Arsenic operates on the alimentary canal in a greater 
degree than either the emetic tartar, or the muriate of barytes. 
The heart is affected more by arsenic than by the emetic tar- 
tar, and more by this last than by the muriate of barytes. 
4. The corrosive sublimate, when taken internally in large 
quantity, occasions death by acting chemically on the mucous 
membrane of the stomach, so as to destroy its texture ; the 
organs more immediately necessary to life being affected in 
consequence of their sympathy with the stomach. 
