This most important discovery, pregnant alike with interesting physiological deductions and valuable medico-legal applications, was first announced by him to the Parisian Academy of Medicine in January, 1839; when he stated that arsenic is absorbed in such quantity in cases of poisoning as to admit of being discovered by an improved process of analysis in various organs and fluids of the body, such as the liver, spleen, kidneys, muscles, blood, and urine.[569] In November, 1840, he proved these facts to the satisfaction of a committee of the academy.[570] And since then they have been confirmed by others, not merely in express experiments, but likewise in the familiar experience of medico-legal practice. The situations where arsenic is met with in largest quantity are the liver, the spleen, and the urine, but above all the liver. The precise circumstances in which it may be found in one or another of these quarters have not yet been determined. But in most cases of acute arsenical poisoning where the search has been made at all, it has proved successful in the liver. In two late instances I have readily found arsenic by the process of Marsh or Reinsch in the liver after four months’ interment. Since arsenic then is clearly absorbed into the blood, it becomes an interesting question whether the organization of the blood is thereby changed. This question cannot be answered with confidence. But in all probability the blood does undergo some change in its _crasis_; for in most cases of acute poisoning that fluid is found after death in a remarkable state of fluidity [see Section on the Morbid Appearances]; and Mr. James observed that if venous or arterial blood be received into a solution of arsenic, instead of coagulating in the usual way, a viscous jelly first forms, and lumpy clots separate afterwards.[571] Our knowledge of the affection induced by the remote action of arsenic is in some respects vague. Toxicologists have for the most part been satisfied with calling it a disorder of the general nervous system. When employed to designate the state of collapse which accompanies or forms the chief feature of acute cases of poisoning with arsenic, this term is misapplied. The whole train of symptoms is that not of a general nervous disorder, but simply of depressed action of the heart. That this is the chief organ remotely acted on in such cases farther appears probable from certain physiological experiments, in which it has been remarked, that immediately after rapid death from arsenic the irritability of the heart was exhausted or nearly so, while that of the intestines, gullet, and voluntary muscles continued as usual.[572] As to the singular symptoms which often arise in the advanced stage of lingering cases, the term, disorder of the general nervous system, is more appropriately applied to them. They clearly indicate a deranged state sometimes of the brain, sometimes of particular nerves.