ON THE EFFECTS OF ACRID TOISONS. 
213 
our observation in cadaveric inspections must be referred to 
alterations which the texture undergoes after deaths and these 
may be of two kinds, either occasioned by its own molecular 
changes or by the action of the contents of the stomach, which 
not merely alter the colour of the fluids in the vessels, as I have 
before stated, but materially affect the form and texture of the 
membrane with which they are in contact. Extreme cases of 
this kind have long since been pointed out by John Hunter as 
cases of the digestion of the stomach by its own secretion. 
Short of this extreme effect there are many proceeding to a less 
considerable extent which must not be overlooked. The dif¬ 
ficulties which I have enumerated are still further increased by 
an imperfect knowledge of the structure of the lining membrane 
of the stomach. The surface of the mucous membrane of the 
stomach is generally described as villous, and even Billard ap¬ 
pears to agree in this description of it. I have at least a doubt 
respecting the accuracy of this statement. To me the surface of 
the stomach from which its secretion has been carefully removed 
and its place supplied by a little clear transparent water, appears 
to be indeed by no means perfectly smooth, yet not to be strictly 
villous like the internal surface of the small intestines. It has 
an indeterminate character which it is extremely difficult to de¬ 
scribe in words. In the serous membranes the assistance of a 
powerful microscope enables us to distinguish delicate fibres 
intimately interlaced ; but when the mucous membrane of the 
stomach is thus examined I can only observe an amorphous 
semitransparent mass in which no structural arrangement can be 
distinguished; there is therefore little to be expected from this 
inode of examination. When the recent healthy membrane is 
immersed in clear water it becomes slightly thickened, but when 
gently pressed between the fingers it resumes its former thin¬ 
ness. This would seem to indicate that the water had penetrated 
a sort of areolar or spongy tissue, but had not intimately com¬ 
bined with it as with mucus itself or with some other aqueous 
secretion. Some idea of the texture of the mucous membrane 
of the stomach may be formed from the vessels which ramify 
through it, and which are liable from various causes to become 
injected and consequently visible. When this injection is neither 
intense nor universal, the vessels may be traced with the assistance 
of a lens or even with the naked eye. They exhibit a character 
which may not inaptly be styled dendritic, since they 
closely resemble the marks in Mocha stone to which mineral¬ 
ogists have applied this epithet. These injected capillaries 
in the mucous membrane of the stomach are neither so minute 
and delicate, nor have they so well-defined, even and clean an 
