- manded Morgagni. They answered in the affirmative;
the priest who had little or no appetite, ate scarcely any thing but the cheese. In that case, said Morgagni, you understand already that there was arsenic among that cheese, which had probably been prepared for killing rats, and not having been laid away with sufficient care, some one had taken it to serve up with your rice during the time that you were hurrying the landlord to send up your dinner. These conjectures were verified by the confession of the landlord himself, who, having learned that the patients were out of danger, was no longer afraid to acknowledge that such had been the cause of this unfortunate accident."
The practitioner, says Orfila, will not be able to form a correct judgment in cases of this kind, if he neglect to pay attention, first, to the state of the stomach of the different persons poisoned; in fact, those who have taken a great quantity of food or drink, would feel in general less severe symptoms than others; second, to the nature of the dishes and of the drinks, as well as to the quantity that each person may have eaten or drank; third, to the existence or absence of vomitings and stools. It is evident that it may happen, that some persons have eaten a tolerably large quantity of a poisoned dish without any serious symptoms taking place, for this very reason, that the quantity of the food was considerable, and that it easily produced copious evacuations, by means of which the poison had been expelled. Numerous cases of culinary poisoning might be adduced in this place, in illustration of the important lights which are to be derived from the investigations which form the subject of the present chapter; but we have already considered the subject very fully
