supper; her illness did not begin till past six next morning; the symptoms were mortal coldness, fainting, general pains, headache, pain in the stomach, purging and colic, without vomiting, and she died after twenty-four hours’ illness; the morbid appearances were general redness of the stomach, softening and pulpy destruction of a third part of its posterior parietes, and nevertheless the presence in the stomach of a pint and a half of fluid matter, containing evidently the remains of soup taken by the woman after she felt unwell. On the decision of the Parisian faculty the prisoners were discharged; and the original reporters were deservedly handled with great severity in several publications that appeared not long after.[218] _Of perforations of the Gullet and Intestines from natural causes, and their distinctions from those produced by poisons._—The intestines, and sometimes even the gullet, may be perforated by the same erosive or solvent process as the stomach. Thus Mr. Allan Burns observes, that in four plump children, whose previous history he could not learn, he found every part of the alimentary canal, from the termination of the gullet down to the beginning of the rectum, reduced to a gluey, transparent pulp, like thick starch. The bodies were quite free from putrefaction; but the abdomen exhaled a very sour smell when opened. No other organic derangement could be detected.[219] The particulars of a similar case, with an account of the symptoms, have been lately published by Mr. Smith, a London surgeon. In the body of a child who died of protracted diarrhœa subsequent to weaning, the whole intestines, from the duodenum to the sigmoid flexure of the colon, were found fourteen hours after death gelatinous, semitransparent, and so soft and brittle that they could not bear their own weight, but tore when lifted between the fingers. The stomach and rectum were healthy.[220] I lately met with the following instance, where the erosion clearly took place after death. In the body of a girl who died within twelve hours of poisoning with red-precipitate, the stomach and duodenum were found much inflamed, but quite entire and firm three days after death. Eighteen days afterwards, when I had an opportunity of examining these organs, their textures remained firm everywhere, except a few inches below the pylorus, where I found two apertures in the duodenum, each as big as a crown, and surrounded by extensive jelly-like softening.