origin, but will even seldom distinguish the effects of poison from those of processes that occur independently of disease, and subsequent to death. On the subject of real inflammation, as distinguished from redness originating after death, or pseudo-morbid redness, as it is commonly termed,—a subject of great consequence to the medical jurist,—the reader may consult with advantage a paper by Dr. Yelloly,[1] an essay by MM. Rigot and Trousseau,[2] or that of M. Billard.[3] The former authors proved by experiment, that various kinds of pseudo-morbid redness may be formed, which cannot be distinguished from the parallel varieties caused by inflammation; that these appearances are formed after death, and not till three, five, or eight hours after it; that they are to be found chiefly in the most depending turns of intestines, and in the most depending parts of each turn, or of the stomach; and that after they have been formed, they may be made to shift their place, and appear where the membrane was previously healthy, by simply altering the position of the gut. M. Billard, on the other hand, has laid down their characters, and made a minute arrangement of the several kinds. He has divided them into ramiform, capilliform, punctated, striated, laminated, and diffuse redness,—terms which need hardly be explained. I must be content with merely referring to these sources of information for a particular account of the appearances in question. But it may be right at the same time to quote an instance of the most aggravated form of pseudo-morbid redness, in order to convince the reader that all forms may equally arise from the same causes. Among other exsample, then, which have been related of laminated redness, or redness in patches from extravasation, M. Billard mentions the case of a man who hanged himself, and in whose body was found, on the mucous membrane of the small intestine where it lay in the right flank, "a large, amaranth-red patch, six finger-breadths wide, covered with bloody exudation, and not removable by washing:" and in the lower pelvis there was a similar patch of even larger dimensions.[4]
Although morbid and pseudo-morbid redness of the inner coat of the alimentary canal cannot be distinguished from one another by any intrinsic character, M. Billard thinks this may be done by attending to collateral circumstances. According to his researches, redness is to be accounted inflammatory only when it occurs in parts not depending in position, or is not limited to such parts: when the mesenteric veins supplying the parts are not distended, nor the great abdominal veins obstructed at the time of death; when the reddened membrane is covered with much mucus, particularly if thick, tenacious, and adhering; when the mucous membrane itself is opaque, so that when dissected off and stretched over the finger, the finger is not visible; when the cellular tissue which connects that membrane
