§ 75. =Effects of the Liquid Acid.=--There is one distinction between poisoning by hydrochloric and the other mineral acids--namely, the absence of corrosion of the skin. Ad. Lesser[94] has established, by direct experiment, that it is not possible to make any permanent mark on the skin by the application even of the strongest commercial acid (40 per cent.). Hence, in any case of suspected poisoning by acid, should there be stains on the lips and face as from an acid, the presumption will be rather against hydrochloric. The symptoms themselves differ very little from those produced by sulphuric acid. The pathological appearances also are not essentially different, but hydrochloric is a weaker acid, and the extensive disorganisation, solution, and perforation of the viscera, noticed occasionally with sulphuric acid, have never been found in hydrochloric acid poisoning. We may quote here the following case:-- [94] Virchow’s _Archiv f. path. Anat._, Bd. 83, Hft. 2, S. 215, 1881. A woman, under the influence of great and sudden grief--not unmixed with passion--drew a bottle from her pocket, and emptied it very quickly. She immediately uttered a cry, writhed, and vomited a yellow-green fluid. The abdomen also became enlarged. Milk was given her, but she could not swallow it, and death took place, in convulsions, two hours after the drinking of the poison. The _post-mortem_ appearances were briefly as follows:--Mouth and tongue free from textural change: much gas in the abdomen, more especially in the stomach; the membranes of the brain congested; the lungs filled with blood. The stomach was strongly pressed forward, of a dark brown-red, and exhibited many irregular blackish spots, varying from two lines to half an inch in diameter (the spots were drier and harder than the rest of the stomach); the mucous membrane, internally, was generally blackened, and changed to a carbonised, shaggy, slimy mass, while the organ was filled with a blackish homogeneous pulp, which had no odour. The gullet was also blackened. A considerable quantity of hydrochloric acid was separated from the stomach.[95] [95] _Preuss. Med. Vereinszeit. u. Friederichs Blätter f. gerichtl. Anthropologie_, 1858, Hft. 6, S. 70.