In three of the instances alluded to by _Mr. Burns_, the patients had been worn out by debilitating diseases; and they were emaciated and anasarcous. That the solution of the coats of the stomach in these cases was properly attributed to the gastric juice is very satisfactorily shewn by the relation of the following instructive dissection. “I had occasion,” says _Mr. Burns_, “two days after death, to open the body of a very emaciated and anasarcous young girl, who had died from scrofulous enlargement of the mesenteric glands. On raising the coverings of the abdomen, the stomach, which was empty, presented itself to view, _with its front dissolved_.[187] The aperture was of an oblong shape, about two inches in its long diameter, and an inch in its short, with tender, flocculent, and pulpy edges. This I demonstrated to the pupils attending my class; and I especially called their attention to the fact, that the liver, which was in contact with the hole, had no impression made on it. Having proceeded thus far, I placed all the parts as they had been, stitched up the abdomen, and laid the body aside in a cold situation for two days. Then I opened it again, in presence of the same gentlemen, and we found that, now, _the liver, where it lay over the dissolved part of the stomach, was pulpy; its peritoneal coat was completely dissolved, and its substance was tender to a considerable depth_. At this time the other parts of the liver were equally solid as before, and as yet every part of the subject was free from putrefaction; _the posterior face of the stomach, opposite to the hole, was dissolved, all except the peritoneal coat, at least the internal coats were rendered pulpy and glutinous; the peritoneal covering had become spongy and more transparent than it ought to have been_.” These facts, in addition to the many other important conclusions to which they will give rise, admonish us, that in judicial investigations into the cause of dissolution of the coats of the stomach, _the appearances will vary, according to the period after death at which the body is examined_. But the most satisfactory case which has been reported, in proof that the _post mortem_ solution of the stomach may occur after a lingering disease, is that just published by _Dr. Haviland_,[188] where the patient died of fever after an illness of 22 days; when upon opening the body about 12 hours after death, the following appearances were noticed: “On raising the stomach and examining the little omentum, we were surprised by the appearance of a dark-coloured fluid, which seemed to escape from the former viscus. A most careful search was now made, and a large opening was perceived in the stomach on the upper and back part, near the cardia. The stomach was then detached, with a portion of the œsophagus and duodenum, when a large perforation of the diaphragm came into view, in the muscular part, corresponding precisely to, and