Resting on the description now given of the spontaneous and poisonous varieties of corrosion, it is an easy matter to decide a controversy, which at the time it occurred made a great deal of noise, and upon which the opinions of toxicologists have been unnecessarily divided. It is the question regarding death by poison which occurred in the trial of Mr. Angus at Liverpool in 1808 for the murder of his housekeeper Miss Burns. The poison suspected was corrosive sublimate. The symptoms were those of irritation in the alimentary canal,—vomiting, purging, and pain. In the dead body there was not any particular redness either of the intestines or of the stomach. But on the fore part of the stomach an aperture was found between the size of a crown piece and the palm of the hand; it had a ragged, pulpy margin; and the dissolution of the inner coat extended two inches from it all round the hole. No mention is made of adhesion or coloration of the margin. This description, it will be remarked, answers exactly that given above of spontaneous gelatinized perforation; and the absence of the signs of vital action around the hole and in the rest of the stomach is incompatible with the effects of a strong corrosive poison, unless death had occurred very soon after it was swallowed. This, however, was out of the question; for then the poison would have been found in the stomach,—which it was not.[217] The case of Angus is not the only instance in recent times of spontaneous perforation having given rise to an opinion by medical men in favour of poisoning, and consequently to a criminal trial. Six years afterwards a similar incident occurred in France. A young woman near Montargis having died of a short illness, and a large erosion having been found in the stomach after death, six practitioners, on a view of the parts, and without referring to the antecedent symptoms or attempting an analysis of the contents of the stomach, declared that she died of the effects of some corrosive poison. The husband and mother-in-law, against whom there does not appear to have been a shadow of general evidence, were therefore imprisoned and subsequently tried for their lives. Luckily, however, an intelligent physician of the town saw the error of the reporters, and after vainly endeavouring to persuade them to revise their opinion, was the means of the case being remitted to the medical faculty of Paris. That distinguished body, with Professor Chaussier at its head, gave a unanimous and decided opinion, not only that there was not any proof of poisoning, but likewise that the woman could have died of nothing else than spontaneous perforation. The leading features of the medical evidence will at once show how indefensible the conduct and opinion of the original reporters were. The last meal taken by the woman before she became ill, and the only one at which poison could have been administered by the prisoners, was her