A middle-aged man, who had long enjoyed excellent health, one afternoon about two o’clock returned home tired, and after having been severely beaten by his wife went to bed. At a quarter past two one of his workmen found him gasping, rolling his eyes, and quite insensible; and he died in a few minutes. As his wife had often maltreated and threatened him, a suspicion arose that he had died of poison, and the body was in consequence examined judiciously by Sir W. Newbigging and myself. The only appearance of disease we could detect was a considerable tuberculation of the septum cordis and anterior parietes of both ventricles. This disease might have been the cause of death; for there is no disease of the heart which may not remain long latent, and prove fatal suddenly. But, as the man never had a symptom referrible to disease of the heart, it was impossible to infer, in face of a suspicion of poisoning, that it must have been the cause of death; since the man might very well have died of poison, the disease of the heart continuing latent. Poisoning, however, was out of the question. The man had taken nothing whatever after breakfasting about nine. Now no poison but one of the most active narcotics in a large dose could cause death so rapidly as in this case; and the operation of such a poison in such a dose could not be suspended so long as from nine till two. An analysis was therefore unnecessary. 5. Little need be said with regard to _the symptoms beginning, while the body is in a state of perfect health_; because in truth almost all acute diseases begin under the same circumstances. Connected with this subject, however, a point of difference should be noticed which may be of use for distinguishing poisoning by the irritants from acute diseases of the inflammatory kind:—the latter rarely begin without some adequate and obvious natural cause. On considering all that has now been said regarding the characteristics of the symptoms of general poisoning, as contrasted with those of natural disease, no one can hesitate to allow, that from them alone a medical jurist can never be entitled to pronounce that poisoning is certain. At the same time he must not on that account neglect them. For, in the first place, they are of great value as generally giving him the first hints of the cause of mischief, and so leading him to search in time for better evidence. Next, they will often enable him to say that poisoning was possible, probable, or highly probable; which, when the moral evidence is very strong, may be quite enough to decide the case. Thirdly, although they can never entitle him to say that poisoning was certain, they will sometimes enable him to say, on the contrary, that it was impossible. And to conclude, when the chemical or moral evidence proves that poison was given, the characters of the symptoms may be necessary to determine whether it was the cause of death.