Page:Treatise on poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence, physiology, and the practice of physic (IA treatiseonpoison00chriuoft).pdf/286

 disappeared, without leaving a trace; but the alimentary canal from the throat to the anus, along with the hair and the bare bones, was quite entire.

In all of these cases arsenic was found in the body. In the rabbit experimented on by Dr. Borges, above five grains of arsenic were separated in the form of a metallic sublimate.

But, on the contrary, if the arsenic is all or nearly all discharged by vomiting, not only the body generally, but likewise even the stomach and intestines, may follow the usual course of decay. Accordingly, in the case of the child formerly quoted [273], where the body putrified in the usual manner, only four grains and a half of arsenic had been taken; and as it was swallowed in a state of solution and caused violent vomiting, it must have been almost all ejected. Nay, in such circumstances, the alimentary canal, in consequence of its unnatural supply of moisture and incipient disorganization, may decay somewhat faster than other parts. Thus Dr. Murray observed in the case of a man formerly mentioned (264), who lived under violent gastritic symptoms for seven days, and vomited much, that the stomach, which was removed for more minute examination, decayed so rapidly that in twenty-four hours an examination was impracticable, while the body in general rather resisted putrefaction.

The preceding statements on the differences in the state of preservation of the body after poisoning with arsenic are not then incapable of some explanation. Nevertheless, it must be granted that the reasons assigned will not account for all the apparent cases of the preservative powers of arsenic. And especially they will not explain how the whole body has sometimes resisted decay altogether, and become as it were mummified. It is impossible to ascribe this preservation to the anstiseptic power of the arsenic diffused throughout the body in the blood; the quantity there being extremely small. Consequently if the preservation of the bodies is not occasioned by some accidental collateral cause (a mode of accounting for the phenomena which seems inadmissible), this property of arsenic must depend on its causing, by some operation on the living body, a different disposition and affinity among the ultimate elements of organized matter, and so altering the operation of physical laws on it. There appears no sound reason for rejecting this supposition, especially as it is necessary to admit an analogous change of affinities as the only mode of accounting for a still more incomprehensible violation of the ordinary laws of nature,—the spontaneous combustion, or preternatural combustibility, of the human body.

The following judicious observations by Harles on this subject are worthy of attention:—"In regard," says he, "to this singular property of arsenic, now no longer doubtful, it should be remembered that certain circumstances will limit or impair it, while others will favour or increase it;—circumstances, for example, connected with