the physicians refused to sign it; and other medical people who were subsequently added to the commission decided with the latter.[1] The surgeons probably would not have been so hasty, if they had not known that the result of their complaisance would have been the levying of a heavy fine on the inhabitants.
The last kind of discoloration of the inner coat which requires mention is dyeing from the presence of coloured fluids in the contents. A remarkable instance has been recorded where redness of this nature was mistaken for inflammation, and the death of the individual in consequence ascribed at first to poison. A person long in delicate health died suddenly after taking a laxative draught; and the stomach, as well as the gullet, being found on dissection red and livid in various places, it was hastily inferred by his medical attendants, that these appearances were the effect of poison, and that the apothecary had committed some fatal error in compounding the draught. But another physician, who was acquainted with the deceased, although he did not attend him professionally, strongly suspected he had died a natural death; and happening to know he was in the practice of taking a strong infusion of corn-poppy, inferred that the supposed signs of inflammation were merely stains arising from the habitual use of this substance. Accordingly, on making the experiment, he found that in dogs to which a similar infusion was given, appearances were produced identically the same.[2]
Of the effusion of mucus and lymph from natural causes.—The abundant secretion of tough mucus in the stomach is a sign of that organ having been irritated. But the effusion of lymph is more characteristic. This may be produced by natural inflammation as well as by irritating poisons. As arising from either cause, however, it is rare; and certainly by no means so common as would be supposed from what is said in systematic works; for tough mucus has been often mistaken for it. Reticulated lymph adhering to the villous coat, and acccompanied with corresponding reticulated redness of that coat, such as I have seen in animals poisoned with arsenic or oxalic acid, is an unequivocal sign of inflammation.
Of idiopathic ulcers and perforation of the stomach and intestines, and their distinction from those caused by poison.—Both ulceration and perforation may be produced by natural disease. In the ulceration produced by poisons there is generally speaking nothing to distinguish it from natural ulcers; but that caused by some poisons, such as iodine, is said to differ by the surrounding coloration of the membrane; and when the ulcer is caused by a sparingly soluble poison in a state of powder, such as arsenic, the cavity of the ulcer is sometimes filled with the powder. Perforation is a rare effect of the simple irritant poisons; but it is often caused by corrosives. It is imitated by two of the varieties of perforation from natural disease.
The form of natural perforation caused by a common ulcer is precisely the same as that caused by the simple irritants, and is inca-*
