The membranes of the brain were found strongly injected, and there were extravasations. In the mucous membrane of the crop there was also an extravasation. The lungs externally and throughout were of a dirty brown-red colour; the entire heart was filled with coagulated blood, which was weakly acid in reaction. In a second experiment with another pigeon, there was no striking symptom save that of increased frequency of respiration and loss of appetite; at the end of four days it was found dead. There was much congestion of the cerebral veins and vessels, the mucous membrane of the trachea and bronchi were weakly injected, and the first showed a thin, plastic, diphtheritic-like exudation. Dr. Henderson’s[300] researches on rats may also be noticed here. He found that an atmosphere consisting entirely of phosphine killed rats within ten minutes, an atmosphere with 1 per cent. in half an hour. The symptoms observed were almost exactly similar to those noticed in the first experiment on the pigeon quoted above, and the _post-mortem_ appearances were not dissimilar. With smaller quantities of the gas, the first symptom was increased frequency of the respiration; then the animals showed signs of suffering intense irritation of the skin, scratching and biting at it incessantly; afterwards they became drowsy, and assumed a very peculiar attitude, sitting down on all-fours, with the back bent forward, and the nose pushed backwards between the forepaws, so as to bring the forehead against the floor of the cage. When in this position, the rat presented the appearance of a curled-up hedgehog. Phosphine, when injected into the rectum, is also fatal; the animals exhale some of the gas from the lungs, and the breath, therefore, reduces solutions of silver nitrate.[301] [300] _Journ. Anat. and Physiol._, vol. xiii. p. 19. [301] Dybskowsky, _Med. Chem. Untersuchungen aus Hoppe-Seyler’s Labor. in Tübingen_, p. 57. Brenner[302] has recorded the case of a man twenty-eight years old, a pharmaceutist, who is supposed to have suffered from illness caused by repeated inhalations of minute quantities of phosphine. He was engaged for two and a half years in the preparation of hypophosphites; his illness commenced with spots before the eyes, and inability to fix the attention. His teeth became very brittle, and healthy as well as carious broke off from very slight causes. Finally, a weakness of the arms and limbs developed in the course of nine months into complete locomotor ataxy. [302] _St. Petersburg Med. Zeitschr._, 4 Hft., 1865.