2. The second variety of symptoms belong to a peculiar modification of disease, which is described by Tartra in rather strong language. It begins with the symptoms already noticed; but these gradually abate. The patient then becomes affected with general fever, dry skin, spasms and pains of the limbs, difficult breathing, tension of the belly, salivation, and occasional vomiting, particularly of food and drink. Afterwards membranous flakes are discharged by vomiting, and the salivation is accompanied with fœtor. These flakes are often very like the mucous membrane of the stomach and intestines; and such they have often been described to be. More probably, however, they are of adventitious formation; for the mere mucous coat of the alimentary canal cannot supply the vast quantity that is evacuated. There is no doubt, however, that the lining membrane of the alimentary canal is occasionally discharged. Dr. Wilson has mentioned an instance of the ejection by coughing of about nine inches of the cylindrical lining of the pharynx and gullet six days after sulphuric acid was taken.[263] Sometimes worms are discharged dead, and evidently corroded by the poison.[264] Digestion is at the same time deranged, the whole functions of the body are languid, and the patient falls into a state of marasmus, which reduces him to a mere skeleton, and in the end brings him to the grave. Death may take place in a fortnight, or not for months. In one of Tartra’s cases the patient lived eight months. The vomiting of membranous flakes continues to the last. 3. The third variety includes cases of imperfect recovery. These are characterized by nothing but the greater mildness of the primary symptoms, and by the patient continuing for life liable to attacks of pain in the stomach, vomiting of food and general disorder of the digestive function. 4. The last variety comprehends cases of perfect recovery, which are sufficiently numerous even under unpromising appearances. From the average of 55 cases recorded by Tartra it appears that the chances of death and recovery are nearly equal. Twenty-six died, 19 of the primary, 7 of the secondary disorder. Twenty-nine recovered, and of these twenty-one perfectly. Suicidal are for obvious reasons more frequently fatal than accidental cases.