ON THE EFFECTS OF ACRID POISONS. 
217 
which I conceive ought not to be regarded as really possessing 
this character. Of the former class are some foreign patholo¬ 
gists. My friend Dr. Carswell appears to regard those eleva¬ 
tions which I have been describing, and which when in a state 
of hypertrophy give to the mucous membrane of the stomach 
the character which Louis has designated mammillonde , as the 
follicles of the stomach, and the red spots which he has accurately 
described as sometimes occupying their centres he regards as 
the orifices of these follicles. I am induced to take a different 
view of these reddened centres. The mucous membrane of the 
stomach appears itself to be fully adequate to the production of 
mucus. Its follicles (if it possess any) are probably designed 
to bestow some peculiar properties on the juices of the stomach. 
We may therefore expect to find their situation occasionally 
pointed out by indications of a peculiar secretion at particular 
parts; and it is the fact, that we actually meet with such dif¬ 
ferences in the stomach rather than the actual demonstration of a 
follicular structure, on which I ground the opinion, which I offer 
rather as matter of conjecture than of absolute conviction. 
The mucous membrane of the stomach sometimes presents 
small scattered spots, varying in size from about a twentieth 
to a tenth of an inch in diameter, from which the mucous 
membrane appears to have been removed, leaving a clean de¬ 
fined but by no means an elevated edge. Such spots are some¬ 
times the commencement of ulceration, by which the stomach 
is actually perforated. They cannot, therefore, be regarded as 
the consequence of cadaveric solution. Spots are sometimes 
, found scattered over the mucous membrane of the stomach 
scarcely exceeding in size those last mentioned, having a very 
slight depression, and rendered conspicuous chiefly by their 
colour, which is either dark brown or blackish. They are 
evidently produced by ecchymosis, and the idea that they are 
connected with a follicular apparatus is supported by the occa¬ 
sional existence of similar spots in the small intestines, where 
I have supposed them to be connected with the solitary glands. 
There is another appearance which I have met with in the 
stomach, and which though probably in degree cadaveric , con¬ 
curs with the two preceding appearances to support the view 
which I have taken. I have found the mucous membrane of 
the stomach removed in numerous scattered spots having a cir¬ 
cular figure, and varying considerably both in diameter and 
depth. They resemble the appearance which I first noticed in 
not having elevated edges, vascular areola, or other indications 
of ordinary ulceration, but they differ from them in appearing 
