ARSENIC. 
§ 761-] 
ance, being raised here and there by little blebs, and very slightly 
reddened. 
§ 761. The inflammatory and other changes rarely affect the gullet. 
Brodie 1 never observed inflammation of the oesophagus as an effect 
of arsenic ; but, when arsenic is swallowed in the solid state, as in the 
suicide of Soufflard, graphically described by Orfila, 2 it may be affected. 
In Soufflard’s case there was a vivid injection of the pharynx and gullet. 
In many instances, when the arsenic has been taken in the solid form, 
the crystals with mucus and other matters adhere to the lining membrane. 
One of the authors has seen in the stomach of a horse, poisoned by an 
ounce of arsenic, an exquisite example of this. The inflammatory 
changes may be recognised many months after death owing to the 
antiseptic properties of arsenic ; nevertheless, great caution is necessary 
in giving an opinion, for there is often a remarkable redness induced by 
putrefactive changes in healthy stomachs. Casper, 3 on this point, 
very justly observes :—“ If Orfila quotes a case from Lepelletier, in 
which the inflammatory redness of the mucous membrane of the stomach 
was to be recognised after nine months’ interment, and if Taylor cites 
two cases in which it was observed nineteen and twenty-one months after 
death respectively, this is in contradiction of all that I, on my part, have 
seen in the very numerous exhumed corpses examined by me in relation 
to the gradual progress of putrefaction and of saponification, and I can¬ 
not help here suspecting a confusion with the putrefactive imbibition 
redness of the mucous membrane.” 
If examined microscopically, the liver and kidneys show no change 
save a fatty degeneration and infiltration of the epithelial cells. In the 
muscular substance of the heart, under the endocardium, there is almost 
constantly noticed ecchymosis. In the most acute cases, in which a 
cholera-like diarrhoea has exhausted the sufferer, the blood mav be 
thickened from loss of its aqueous constituents, and the whole of the 
organs will present that singularly dry appearance found in all cases in 
which there has been a copious draining away of the body fluids. In 
the narcotic form of arsenical poisoning, the vessels of the brain have 
been noted as congested, but this congestion is neither marked nor 
pathognomonic. Among the rare pathological changes may be classed 
glossitis, in which the whole tongue has swollen, and is found so large 
as almost to fill the mouth. This has been explained, in one case, as 
caused by solid arsenious acid having been left a little time in the mouth 
before swallowing it. On the other hand, it has also been observed 
when the poison has been absorbed from a cutaneous application. When 
arsenic has been introduced into the vagina, the ordinary tra*ces of 
inflammatory action have been seen, and, even without direct contact, 
an inflammation of the male and female sexual organs has been recorded, 
1 Phil. Trans., 1812. 2 Ti. p. 319. 3 Handbuch, ii. 420. 
