A _post-mortem_ examination showed a burn on the chest of the infant 2 inches in length. The tongue, pharynx, and gullet were all healthy; in the stomach a patch of mucous membrane, about half an inch in extent, was found to be brownish, friable, and very thin. A chemical examination showed that the portion of the bed adjacent to the burnt place contained free sulphuric acid. Here, then, was the following evidence: the sudden death of a helpless infant, a carbonised bed-cover with free sulphuric acid, and, lastly, an appearance in the stomach which, it might be said, was not inconsistent with sulphuric acid poisoning. Yet a careful sifting of the facts convinced the judges that no crime had been committed, and that the child’s death was due to disease. Afterwards, experiment showed that if a live coal fall on to any tissue, and be drenched with water, free sulphuric acid is constantly found in the neighbourhood of the burnt place. § 59. =Symptoms.=--The symptoms may be classed in two divisions, viz.:--1. External effects of the acid. 2. Internal effects and symptoms arising from its interior administration. 1. =External Effects.=--Of late years several instances have occurred in which the acid has been used criminally to cause disfiguring burns of the face. The offence has in all these cases been committed by women, who, from motives of revengeful jealousy, have suddenly dashed a quantity of the acid into the face of the object of their resentment. In such cases, the phenomena observed are not widely different from those attending scalds or burns from hot neutral fluids. There is destruction of tissue, not necessarily deep, for the acid is almost immediately wiped off; but if any should reach the eye, inflammation, so acute as to lead to blindness, is the probable consequence. The skin is coloured at first white, at a later period brown, and part of it may be, as it were, dissolved. If the tract or skin touched by the acid is extensive, death may result. The inflammatory processes in the skin are similar to those noticed by Falck and Vietor in their experiments, already detailed (p. 79).