hey had been boiled; there are often
black or brown streaks in it. Stomach contains dark, grumous matter, and
is soft, pale, and brittle. Intestines slightly inflamed, stomach
sometimes quite healthy.

_Treatment._--Warm water, then chalk, carbonate of magnesium, or
lime-water, freely. Not alkalies, as the oxalates of the alkalies are
soluble and poisonous. Castor-oil. Emetics, but not stomach-pump.

_Fatal Dose._--One drachm is the smallest, but half an ounce is usually
fatal.

_Method of Extraction from the Stomach._--Mince up the coats of the
stomach and boil them in water, or boil the contents of the stomach and
subject them to dialysis. Concentrate the distilled water outside the
tube containing the vomited matters, etc., and apply tests.

_Tests._--White precipitate with nitrate of silver, soluble in nitric
acid and ammonia. When the precipitate is dried and heated on
platinum-foil, it disperses as white vapour with slight detonation.
Sulphate of lime in excess gives a white precipitate, soluble in nitric
or hydrochloric acid, but insoluble in oxalic, tartaric, acetic, or any
vegetable acid.

=Oxalate or Binoxalate of Potash= (salts of sorrel or salts of lemon) is
almost as poisonous as the acid itself.

XIV.--CARBOLIC ACID

=Carbolic Acid, Phenic Acid, or Phenol=, is largely employed as a
disinfectant, and is often supplied in ordinary beer-bottles without
labels.

_Symptoms._--An intense burning pain extending from the mouth to the
stomach and intestines. Indications of collapse soon supervene. The skin
is cold and clammy, and the lips, eyelids, and ears, are livid. This is
followed by insensibility, coma, stertorous breathing, abolition of
reflex movements, hurried and shallowed respiration, and death. The
pupils are usually contracted, and the urine, if not suppressed, is dark
in colour, or even black. Patients often improve for a time, and then
die suddenly from collapse. When the poison has been absorbed through
the skin or mucous membranes, a mild form of delirium, with great
weakness and lividity, are the first signs.

_Post-Mortem._--If strong acid has been swallowed, the lips and mucous
membranes are hardened, whitened, and corrugated. In the stomach the
tops of the folds are whitened and eroded, while the furrows are
intensely inflamed.

_Treatment._--Soluble sulphates which form harmless sulpho-carbolates in
the blood should be administered at once. An ounce of Epsom salts or of
G