body. Neither was any particle of the arsenic found among the food administered-therefore there were no medical proofs but the symptoms during life, and the appearances after death. What the circumstantial evidences of the witnesses were we are not informed; but it appears that the criminal was condemned, and, before execution, confessed to the administration of arsenic. It is therefore interesting to know what were the grounds of the medical evidence.

The arsenic was taken on the morning of the 19th of August, and the man did not present himself to the narrator till the evening of the 24th of the same month. The man stated that on the 19th his illness commenced with sickness, succeeded by thirst, head-ache, and ultimately vomiting, which symptom often recurred during the next four or five days. In the early part of this space, the man was heard to complain of pain in his stomach, eyes, throat, breast, and arms. He voided his urine frequently. Yet his illness had scarcely at any time confined him to bed. On the 22d he took a dose of Epsom salts, which operated. On the 24th he rode six miles to see Mr. Murray, for the first time, complaining of the following symptoms:-pain and heat in the region of the stomach and lower part of the chest; occasional uneasiness in the abdomen, and sometimes ineffectual efforts to go to stool; thirst; difficulty of breathing; heat and uneasiness in the throat, with hoarseness: soreness in the eyes, which appeared inflamed; shifting pains in the extremities, particularly the arms, which were unusually weak; great restlessness; anxious expression of countenance, pulse from 100 to 110 --not strong. A blister was applied over the stomach and lower part of the chest, and an opiate ordered at bed time. On the following day (25th) Mr. Murray visited him at his own house, and found him nearly as above. His countenance exhibited a disturbed and anxious expression; the redness of his eyes and hoarseness were increased; and Mr. M. this day observed on the palate and uvula, small roundish white acuminated prominences, seemingly the membrane covering the palate bones and velum pendulum, detached at the parts by a whitish liquid. This day an ounce of castor oil was administered. He died in bed that night, without being observed. We shall give the dissection in the words of Mr. Murray.

"The face had a natural, composed appearance; and the rigidity of the body did not appear to be different from what is common. The right ear, and corresponding side of the face, as well as the scalp, exhibited a deep clay-blue colour. On the chest and belly, several spots and streaks, some green, others blue, were observed; and the back, upon which the body lay, was from head to foot of a livid colour; while several roundish spots, of a still deeper hue, gave to the shoulders and neck a mottled appearance. The penis was much swollen, and red. The scrotum also was enlarged, and of a dark blue colour.

Upon opening the belly, the smell was not unusually offensive, and the abdominal contents did not appear to us to have undergone alteration after death; but, in the cavity, several ounces of a high

coloured liquid were found. On the intestines, jejunum and ilium, many purple spots, some of them several inches in circumference, were observed: and the outer surface of the stomach, in a tract which extended from the cardiac orifice, and occupied, for some distance downwards, the whole circumference of that viscus, excepting the small curvature, was of a clear, dark red colour; and through this space dark lines, apparently veins, ramified. This appearance, perhaps from 20 to 30 square inches in extent, was strongly marked in contrast with the natural state of the inferior extremity and small curvature. The substance connecting the stomach to the spleen, was, as well as a small part of the transverse colon, of a red colour. The spleen was gorged with blood; the liver healthy. The duodenum, from a small distance below the pylorus, almost to its inferior extremity, and round nearly the whole intestine, was of a very dark purple colour. Upon opening the stomach, the internal surface of that part where the outward appearance, already described, existed, was found of a bright colour, and over this lighter dots were thickly scattered; making such an appearance as might be produced by a red colour being dashed, from a painter's pencil, upon a somewhat darker ground. The inner coats of the duodenum were very dark coloured, with a slightly reddish hue, pulpy, thickened, and easily separated from the peritoneal covering, while in one roundish spot, of the size of a crown-piece, the villous and muscular coats were entirely wanting. Red patches were observed on the inner surface of the jejunum and ilium, the shape, size, and situation of which were the same as those of the appearances already noted on the outside of these intestines. The stomach and duodenum contained about a quart of a brown, semi-opaque, thickish liquid; the jejunum and ilium were empty, and coated with a yellow viscid matter. The lungs and heart were quite healthy; but in the cavity of the thorax were 10 ounces of a reddish turbid liquid, and about half that quantity in the pericardium. The pharynx was of an unusually red colour: the whole of the brain was healthy, and of firm consistence." Edinb. Journ. p. 171.

The symptoms in the three individuals who recovered, were, of course, milder considerably in degree, than in the case here detailed. All four had breakfasted together on the morning of their illness, on porridge consisting of milk, salt, and oatmeal. By each of the parties a dose of castor oil, and a course of weak Epsom salts had been taken. They had also entered on a medicine composed of alkaline solution and opium, but considering themselves beyond hope they left it off.

We grant, with Mr. Murray, that the internal evidence of poison here is very strong; but we do not think it conclusive, were there no external evidence of a more unequivocal nature. We put it to Mr. Murray whether, if no suspicion had existed in the minds of the parties poisoned, and this individual alone had applied to him, and been opened after death, he would have decided that he died of poison? The circumstances of four indiduals being taken ill at the

same time, and with nearly similar symptoms, was a part of the external evidence, and has nothing to do with the internal or pathological evidence under consideration. The whole of the phenomena, both before and after death, were the product of inflammation, and although the man's confession puts it beyond a doubt, that arsenic was the cause, yet the same effects might and do ensue, from other causes; consequently, we do not see how the medical evidence could affirm, merely from the internal phenomena, living and post mortem, that the death was occasioned by arsenic. Nothing would induce us to give such an evidence, but the detection of the poison itself. It was for the jury to take external evidence to their aid, but we conceive the surgeon or physician had only the symptoms and dissection to guide them. We regret that Mr. Murray has not given the particulars of the trial, as it would form an interesting article in a forensic point of view. We hope he will publish the evidence.

25. Voltaic Battery.* It is known to the readers of this Journal, that Dr. Philip, some years ago, presented to the Royal Society, an account of some experiments, from which he inferred that, the functions of the stomach and lungs are interrupted by dividing the eighth pair of nerves in the neck, and restored by subjecting these organs to the influence of the voltaic battery; that these inferences were called in question by certain members of the Royal Society, who could not obtain the same results from Dr. Philip's experiments; that Dr. Philip, for the satisfaction of these gentlemen and the Royal Society, last year, repeated his experiments, with the assistance of one of the gentlemen in question, Mr. Brodie, at the Royal Institution, where the president and other members of the Royal Society, witnessed the results, and that Mr. Brodie, in the handsomest manner, then declared his conviction of the accuracy of Dr. Philip's statements.

The Royal Society, with that liberality and candour which are inseparable from a love of science, now publish the results of the investigation; which will do away the effects which naturally arose, from the report of the gentlemen abovementioned, having been received as a refutation of Dr. Philip's statement. That now published, is drawn up by Dr. Philip, in his own and Mr. Brodie's name. It is very short, but we have only room for the following extract.

"In other experiments, in which, after the division of the nerves, the divided ends had been turned completely away from each other, little or no perfectly digested food, when the animal was allowed to live some hours, was found in the stomach, and the longer the ani

Some Positions respecting the Influence of the Voltaic Battery in obviating the Effects of the Division of the Eighth Pair of Nerves, drawn up by A. P. W. Philip, M.D. F.R.S. E. &c. and presented by B. C. Brodie, Esq. F.R.S.-(From the Philosophical Transactions of the present year.)

mal lived, the smaller was the proportion of the digested food found in the stomach; the great mass having the appearance of masticated food, which was not sensibly lessened in quantity, however long the animal lived. In an experiment in which, under such circumstances, the stomach was exposed from the time of the division of the nerves, to the influence of a voltaic battery, sent through the lower portion of the divided nerves, its contents were apparently as much changed, as they would have been in the same time in the healthy animal. The change was also of the same kind; the contents of the stomach assuming a dark colour, and those of the pyloric end being more uniform, and of a firmer consistence, than those of the central and cardiac portions of the stomach, while the whole contents became less in quantity."

26. Surgical School of Edinburgh. Mr. Liston is well-known as a junior surgeon of Edinburgh, who has performed and published, accounts of, some very perilous operations in surgery. He has passed the ligature for subclavian aneurism successfully, between the scaleni muscles-the fourth operation of the kind only, and almost the only successful one.-In another case of ossified aneurismal tumor, he removed the base of the scapula with success, &c. &c. &c. The Revue Medicale (September 1820, p. 117) observes of that latter operation, that it was "accompagnée de circonstances tres remarquables, et montre jusque quel peut la chirurgie peut etre entreprenante sans témérité ". It is also well known that the simplicity of his methods of operating, their brevity and success, whatsoever the operations be, have been so conspicuous, that he must, at all events, point towards the summit of Scottish surgery, if not more. This is doing a great deal, but for this, it seems, he has encountered much of the same unrelenting persecution which deprived Edinburgh of the talents of Messrs. John and Charles Bell, and threw obstacles into the paths of a Brown and a Gregory. We have no inclination to enter into this inglorious conflict, but it is impossible not to feel indignant at the uncontradicted exposures in Mr. Liston's letters. Mr. L's cause we hope is too good to need our support, and his proposition of a new school of surgery deserves high encouragement, for we are declared enemies to monopoly in science, as well as in commerce. Nothing would so much exalt Edinburgh, as a school of surgery, founded on the same excellent system as that of medicine. It is to be feared, however, that Mr. L. will experience great obstacles to his scheme from the opposition of an unrelenting and arbitrary force, deafened by prejudice and based on personal influence and interest. Be this as it may, superior example will work: Dr. Duncan, jun. in his excellent Clinical

Three letters to the Contributors to the Royal Infirmary, to the Lord Provost, and to the Managers of the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, by Robert Liston, Surgeon, &c. 1822.

Reports, candidly confesses that though the Edinburgh schools disavowed John Brown's doctrines, yet that their poison was so subtle and pervading that it decidedly influenced all their practice. It is to be hoped that somewhat of modern British feeling has had an alterative effect on former Northern habits; but Edinburgh has long been famed for these things, though most readers of those theories of Scotch wisdom and liberality in public economy, which appear in certain political journals, would look confidently for something better. We will venture to advise those luminaries who can see errors so acutely in our English institutions to reflect that there is some work done at home, which would not bear the liberal air in our generous country for an instant. This they not only know, but must opine, that the measures and principles which they most inconsistently advocate under their own domination, to sink genius at its first breath, are precisely those which, if pertaining to England, would call forth their bitterest animadversions.

In conclusion, we beg to state it as our belief, that Mr. Liston has been intemperate in his expressions, and too violent in his conduct-circumstances that may well admit of palliation, on account of his youth and zealous disposition; but no excuse can be offered for the rancorous abuse and vile vituperations launched forth by the hireling retainers of the law against a defenceless, youthful, and we will repeat, an excellent operating surgeon, in order to sacrifice his rising character, and extinguish his dawning merits at the shrine of a haughty oligarchy. But we confidently anticipate a salutary reaction against this ignoble persecution. Let the youth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, whose hearts are not yet rendered callous by self-interest and party cabal, do justice. Let them examine with their own eyes, and act with independence and generosity. We need not ask more, and we cannot expect less.

27. Melanose.* This able and indefatigable anatomist and surgeon has found a black matter, which coloured linen and paper as much as Indian ink, in various parts and structures of the human body-frequently in the form of encysted tumours. On examination these degenerations presented no trace of vessels, nerves, or fibres. M. Breschet considers them as morbid secretions rather than decompositions of tissue. He has found them in various animals, as the dog, cat, hare, but particularly the horse. This black matter was sometimes fluid, pultaceous, hard, concrete, laminated. It is homogeneous, and without taste or flavour. It is miscible with water and alkohol.

The encysted melanoses vary in size from that of a pea to a pigeon's egg. When larger than this, M. Breschet thinks they are

* M. Breschet, considerations sur une alteration organique, &c. &c, &c. Journal de Physiologie, par M. Majendie.