§ 11. Matthieu Joseph Bonaventura Orfila must be considered the father of modern toxicology. His great work, _Traité de Toxicologie_, was first published in 1814, and went through many editions. Orfila’s chief merit was the discovery that poisons were absorbed and accumulated in certain tissues--a discovery which bore immediate fruit, and greatly extended the means of seeking poisons. Before the time of Orfila, a chemist not finding anything in the stomach would not have troubled to examine the liver, the kidney, the brain, or the blood. The immense number of experiments which Orfila undertook is simply marvellous. Some are of little value, and teach nothing accurately as to the action of poisons--as, for example, many of those in which he tied the gullet in order to prevent vomiting, for such are experiments under entirely unnatural conditions; but there are still a large number which form the very basis of our pathological knowledge. Orfila’s method of experiment was usually to take weighed or measured quantities of poison, to administer them to animals, and then after death--first carefully noting the changes in the tissues and organs--to attempt to recover by chemical means the poison administered. In this way he detected and recovered nearly all the organic and inorganic poisons then known; and most of his processes are, with modifications and improvements, in use at the present time.[26] [26] Orfila’s chief works are as follows:-- _Traité de Toxicologie._ 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1814. _Leçons de Chimie, appliquées à la Méd. Pratique._ 16mo. Brussels, 1836. _Mémoire sur la Nicotine et la Conicine._ Paris, 1851. _Leçons de la Méd. Légale._ 8vo. Paris, 1821. _Traité des Exhumations Juridiques, et Considérations sur les Changemens Physiques que les Cadavres éprouvent en se pourrissant._ 2 tom. Paris, 1831.