_Post-mortem Appearances._--Those of acute irritant poisoning, including extensive destruction of the coats of the stomach, by softening, ulceration, and perforation, terminating in gangrene. The stomach may contain a quantity of white vapour, having a strong smell of garlic. This white vapour has been noticed to pass from the vagina and anus of those poisoned by phosphorus. The blood appears to be thoroughly disorganised; the blood-cells are colourless and transparent, their colouring matter being dissolved in the uncoagulated liquor sanguinis; hæmorrhages may be present beneath the serous membranes and in the pleural and pericardial cavities, and thromboses are frequently present, due to a tendency for the blood-cells to agglutinate. In a case recorded in the _British Medical Journal_, 1873, fatty degeneration of the liver and kidneys was found a week after the poison was taken. In phosphorus poisoning, the liver is enlarged, of a dull appearance, doughy, uniformly yellow, with the acini well marked; in acute atrophy, the liver is diminished in size, greasy on the surface, leathery, of a dirty yellow colour, with traces only of the obliterated acini. In the former, also, the hepatic cells are either filled with oil globules or entirely replaced by them; in the latter, the cells are filled with a fine granular detritus, and their structure replaced by newly-formed connective tissue. Putrefaction rapidly supervenes on death. Hæmorrhages may be found on the surface of the brain and spinal cord, and the grey matter of the cortex and basal ganglia rose-pink in colour. Fatty changes have been found in the walls of the capillaries and the large cortical cells. _Chemical Analysis._--The smell of phosphorus is characteristic, as is also its luminosity when exposed in the dark. The following process, suggested by Mitscherlich, may be adopted for its detection: To render the suspected matter quite fluid water is added, previously acidulated with sulphuric acid, in order to neutralise any ammonia present. The liquid is then transferred to a glass retort, fitted with a long condensing tube passing into a receiver containing solution of nitrate of silver. Distillation is conducted in the dark, when the minutest trace of phosphorus may be detected by the luminous appearance of the vapour during condensation. Other modifications of this process have been suggested, in order to increase the space occupied by the phosphorescence.