substance, nor should he put it into his food; for by such a proceeding he would not only run the hazard of losing the greatest part of it, because the animal would reject it, but the food with which it is combined might exert upon it some chemical action, or so envelope it as to protect the coats of the stomach from its contact; besides which it would, says he, happen, at least six times in ten, that a part of it would flow through the larynx into the lungs, and the animal will die of Asphyxia. 2d. The best method that can be employed, consists in detaching the œsophagus, perforating it with a small hole, introducing into it a glass funnel, and pouring the liquid into the stomach; that being done, the œsophagus is to be tied below the opening. It would, observes _M. Orfila_, be imprudent to prefer to this method, the use of an elastic gum tube adapted to a syringe, for many bite the tube, pierce it with holes, and the fluid then flows out of the mouth; besides which, syringes of tin might decompose certain poisonous fluids. The obvious objection to such a mode of administration is anticipated by this laborious experimenter with much ingenuity. It may be asserted, says he, that the animal perished from the operation of tying the œsophagus, and not from the action of the poison thus introduced into the stomach, but such an objection has no foundation in truth, for either the suspected substance is in quantity sufficient to destroy the animal, or it is not; in the first case death will take place during the first forty-eight hours, and will be preceded by symptoms more or less severe, a phenomenon never observed in the simple ligature of the œsophagus; in the second case, the experiment will not be more conclusive, than if the œsophagus had not been tied: and the author asserts, that the operation of tying the œsophagus would not, of itself, produce during the first forty-eight hours any other symptom than a slight dejection, and that consequently all other morbid phenomena that may be observed, upon such trials, ought to be attributed to the poisonous substance. To all this we reply, that we believe, in the hands of _Orfila_ who has made a thousand experiments, that such results may be satisfactory, but we feel no hesitation in declaring, that we should not place the smallest reliance upon such an experiment when conducted by a person unaccustomed to the operations of experimental physiology. If there be no other mode of employing an animal as a test for poison, but by tying his œsophagus, we must, in a judicial point of view, reject it altogether.