(2) The patient may be suffering from surgical cerebral compression or concussion. Signs of injury about the head or other parts of the body, oozing of blood or sero-sanguinolent fluid from the ears and nose, will sometimes clear up the diagnosis. Especially suggestive of meningeal hemorrhage is a gradually increasing stupor without distinct hemiplegia. (3) The coma may be uræmic. In some cases anasarca and slow pulse point at once to this pathological condition. In all comatose cases without history the urine should be drawn with a catheter for testing, and signs of various forms of Bright's disease may be detected. The ophthalmoscope (easily used in comatose subjects) may yield most valuable indications by revealing retinitis albuminurica or neuro-retinitis. (4) The patient may be under the effects of a clot in the brain or of acute softening of a considerable part of the organ. Hemiplegia with conjugate deviation of the eyes and head is usually present, the head and eyes turning away from the paralyzed side, the patient looking, as it were, toward the lesion. A latent hemiplegic state may sometimes be determined by one-sided redness of the buttock, and by a slight difference of temperature between the two hands (paralyzed side warmer). The general temperature of the body (measured preferably in the vagina or rectum) exhibits a marked rise. After cerebral hemorrhage there is, according to Charcot and Bourneville, a fall below the normal during the first hour, followed by a steady rise to 106° or 108° F. at death in severe cases. After embolism or thrombosis, causing softening, the rise of temperature is less in extent and not as regularly progressive. (5) The subject may be simply drunk or poisoned by alcohol. In such a case the patient may usually be roused momentarily by loud speaking, shaking, or by painful impression; the breath is alcoholic; the cerebral temperature subnormal or normal. The urine must be tested for alcohol.[2] It must not be forgotten that on the one hand intoxicated persons are most prone to falls causing fracture of the skull or concussion, and on the other hand that the early stage of coma from meningeal hemorrhage resembles narcosis. [Footnote 2: Anstie's Test.—A test solution is made by dissolving one part of bichromate of potassium in three hundred parts by weight of strong sulphuric acid. The urine is to be added drop by drop to the solution. If a bright emerald-green color suddenly results from this manipulation, it signifies that there is a toxic amount of alcohol in the urine.] (6) The coma of congestive or malignant malarial fever is to be {28} distinguished mainly by the absence of physical or paralytic symptoms, coinciding with a high rectal temperature. The spleen is often enlarged. Some would add that Bacillus malariæ and pigment might be found in the splenic blood, withdrawn by a long, fine needle.