is necessarily out of the question, for death is immediate; the red and inflamed appearance therefore of the stomach can alone be accounted for by regarding it as the effect of the sudden cessation of the heart, producing an accumulation of the blood in the extreme arterial branches. But what shall we say of _Dr. Haviland’s_ case? so far from the patient dying suddenly, and in the plenitude of health, he expired after a lingering illness of three weeks, and yet, upon dissection, the stomach was found _highly vascular_. This is in direct opposition to the theory of _Mr. Burns_, and, we must confess, is not a little embarrassing. Where the gastric solution has proceeded so far as to produce perforations in its coats, _Mr. Hunter_ states that, “the contents of the stomach are generally found loose in the cavity of the abdomen, about the spleen and diaphragm; and that in many subjects this digestive power extends much farther than through the stomach. I have often found,” says he, “that after it had dissolved the stomach at the usual place, the contents had come into contact with the spleen and diaphragm, and had partly dissolved the spleen, &c.” With respect to the appearance of the gastric perforations, _Mr. Hunter_ characterises them as having “their edges apparently half dissolved, very much resembling that kind of dissolution which fleshy parts undergo when half digested in a living stomach, viz. pulpy, tender, and ragged.” As certain corrosive poisons will occasionally produce such organic lesions in the stomach, as lead to perforations in its membranes, a question naturally arises, _how are we to distinguish such disorganizations, produced by causes acting during life, from those which result from solution after death_? To this we may at once return a general answer, that in a judicial investigation, we ought not to attribute erosion of the stomach to poison, except it be accompanied by evident marks of previous inflammation and reaction, or with gangrenous appearances; unless indeed the poisonous substance be found in the stomach, or the symptoms, previous to death, be characteristic and satisfactory. It has been stated that the edges of the natural perforation are “pulpy, tender, and ragged,” whereas those produced by the caustic action of a poison will generally be found well defined, and of the same thickness as any other part of the stomach. But let it be remembered, that, after all, it is upon the detection of poisonous matter in the stomach, that the prudent physician will place his great reliance. We have thus offered a review of the different opinions which have been entertained upon this important question, and in conclusion we may observe, that there will necessarily exist in each particular case, circumstances which no general views can comprehend, and upon which the practitioner must exercise his judgment and discretion. It is not our intention at present to enter fully into the several questions which