I have found that when this process was applied to a decoction of an ounce of beef in six ounces of water, with which one grain of anhydrous oxalic acid had been mixed, all the tests acted characteristically on the solution ultimately procured. I have farther found, that when two grains of oxalate of lime, which correspond with one grain of oxalic acid, were mixed with a similar decoction in which some fragments of beef were purposely left to complicate the process, a solution was eventually obtained, which gave with muriate of lime a white precipitate insoluble in a little muriatic acid, with sulphate of copper a greenish-white precipitate also insoluble in a little muriatic acid, and with nitrate of silver a white precipitate which fulminated and was almost all dispersed, but left a little charcoal, owing to its containing a small proportion of animal matter. In a case which lately happened in London, every test acted as here described, except that the oxalate of lime did not fulminate, owing to the presence of organic impurities.[396] In order to try the test of fulmination in such circumstances, it is essential to dry the precipitated oxalate of silver thoroughly before raising the temperature to the point at which fulmination usually occurs. The process now recommended is both delicate and accurate. An objection has been advanced against it,—that acetate of lead will throw down chloride of lead as well as the oxalate of lead; that both will subsequently be decomposed by the sulphuretted-hydrogen? and that the hydrochloric acid thus brought into the solution with the oxalic acid will be precipitated by the nitrate of silver, and form a mixture of salts which will not fulminate characteristically.[397] This objection is not well founded. Chloride of lead being soluble in thirty parts of temperate water, it will seldom be thrown down from such fluids as occur in medico-legal inquiries; and besides it is easily removed, as I have ascertained, by washing the precipitate with moderate care on the filter.