[83] _Wien. Med.-Halle_, 1864, Nro. 29, 30. § 66. =The Blood.=--In Casper’s case, No. 193, the vena cava of a child, who died within an hour after swallowing a large dose of sulphuric acid, was filled with a cherry-red, strongly acid-reacting blood. Again, Casper’s case, No. 200, is that of a young woman, aged 19, who died from a poisonous dose of sulphuric acid. At the autopsy, four days after death, the following peculiarities of the blood were thus noted:--“The blood had an acid reaction, was dark, and had (as is usual in these cases) a syrupy consistence, while the blood-corpuscles were quite unchanged. The blood was treated with an excess of absolute alcohol, filtered, the filtrate concentrated on a water-bath, the residue exhausted with absolute alcohol, &c. It yielded a small quantity of sulphuric acid.” Other similar cases might be noted, but it must not for a moment be supposed that the mass of the blood contains any free sulphuric acid during life. The acidity of the blood in the vena cava may be ascribed to _post-mortem_ endosmosis, the acid passing through the walls of the stomach into the large vessel. § 67. =Sulphates.=--If the acid swallowed should have been entirely neutralised by antidotes, such as chalk, &c., it becomes of the first importance to ascertain, as far as possible, by means of a microscopical examination, the nature of the food remaining in the stomach, and then to calculate the probable contents in sulphates of the food thus known to be eaten. It will be found that, with ordinary food, and under ordinary circumstances, only small percentages of combined sulphuric acid can be present. As an example, take the ordinary rations of the soldier, viz.:--12 oz. of meat, 24 oz. of bread, 16 oz. of potatoes, 8 oz. of other vegetables; with sugar, salt, tea, coffee, and water. Now, if the whole quantity of these substances were eaten at a meal, they would not contain more than from 8 to 10 grains (·5 to ·6 grm.) of anhydrous sulphuric acid, in the form of sulphates. So far as the contents of the stomach are concerned, we have only to do with sulphates introduced in the food, but when once the food passes further along the intestinal canal, circumstances are altered, for we have sulphur-holding secretions, which, with ordinary chemical methods, yield sulphuric acid. Thus, even in the newly-born infant, according to the analyses of Zweifler, the mineral constituents of meconium are especially sulphate of lime, with a smaller quantity of sulphate of potash. The amount of bile which flows into the whole tract of the intestinal canal is estimated at about half a litre in the twenty-four hours; the amount of sulphur found in bile varies from ·89 to 3 per cent., so that in 500 c.c. we might, by oxidising the sulphur, obtain from 2·2 to 7·5 grms. of sulphuric anhydride.