Accidental poisons are received in the food, or are hastily swallowed by mistake instead of a medicine, before the taste betrays their nature. The former are chiefly copper,arsenic,and lead; the latter, nitre, camphor, ammonia, or the mineral acids.

Copper is greatly dreaded, and has frequently been accused with little reason. Copper culinary vessels, bell metal mortars, and all the various means by which this metal can be introduced to the system, have received an indiscriminate sentence of banishment. Injuries have undoubtedly arisen from them, and we would earnestly join in deprecating their use. When, however, we have said this in the way of caution, may be allowed to add, that the dangers have been greatly magnified. The taste of copper is so peculiar that it can scarcely be disguised, and it will not generally fail to give the alarm in doses far distant from dangeiou-ones. Hunger, or eagerness to taste aluxurious dish,may however, hastily impel us, and such vessels should be avoided. The effects are chiefly on the stomach, and the quantity taken must be considerable to endanger life.

Arsenic has been swallowed accidentally when joined with any sweet substance to poison flies, or -other substances to destroy rats. The effects are so marked and discriminating as not for a moment to mislead, and they have been sufficiently detailed. It has been supposed that this metal may be accidentally introduced into the system when employed In fining wine; but for this purpose it is now wholly disused in this kingdom.

Lead has been accused of producing the Poitou colic when united with cyder, either as this metal is presented to it in the instruments employed in pressing the apples, or as added to correct the acidity of either wine or cyder. We cannot deny that in each instance it has produced the effect, since it is the peculiar consequence of swallowing any saturnine preparation. But these are by no means the constant, or indeed the most frequent causes of the disease. Another source is said to be the glazing of the common earthen vessels, since lead is used in the process, and in such vessels pickles are usually kept. Lead is not, however, always the substance employed, or it is not dissolved by the acetous acid. We have kept vinegar in such vessels for many days in a warm place, without its discovering the presence of lead on the addition of the most delicate tests. The alarm, therefore, we think unfounded. In these circumstances caution is almost as necessary as in the former, where the life of an individual is at stake. The credit of a house, the character of a professional man, are involved; and the feelings of those whose want of caution may have occasioned the mistake may be so excessive as to endanger their lives. Though their negligence may merit punishment, yet that punishment maybe too severe.

Ignorant druggists have sold camphor and nitre instead of neutral salts; and by mistaking the vials, the aqua ammoniae, some mineral acid, or other stimulating substance, has been swallowed. The eagerness to escape from the taste of a disagreeable medicine hastens the act of deglutition, and the error is sometimes not discovered till the whole has been swallowed. The medical treatment is not our object in this place. The only connection this subject has with medical jurisprudence, is to ascertain the cause of death when such substances prove fatal. If taken as a medicine, the effects of the poison must be compared with the symptoms of the disease; and should the latter be highly dangerous, the feelings of the mistaken attendant may perhaps be relieved by the humanity of the physician's declaration, in which, if he offers truth in her fairest and most favourable hue, he will do no injury to any individual.

The symptoms which distinguish camphorswallowed in large doses are, giddiness, vertigo, delirium, and convulsions. Nitre produces, with the common symptoms of narcotic poisons, bloody discharges from the bowels and the urinary organs. The mineral acids and ammonia do not greatly differ in their effects, which are those of violent stimuli, rapidly exhausting irritability. Inflammation in the mouth, or fauces, with a burning heat at the scrobiculus cordis, are followed by vomiting, by the sense of a heavy load in the stomach, and a consequent diminution of all its powers. From these symptoms, the remains of the medicine, and the report of the patient's feelings when it was swallowed, if he is able to report them, the nature of the deleterious draught may be ascertained.

The case of the suicide is deplorable; yet he often repents before the termination of the scene, and can lead us to form a judgment of the treatment necessary. The physician's testimony may be called for, and no rule of morality can, we think, be violated by softening the most offensive circumstances. The feelings of the relatives may be essentially hurt by marks of disgrace to the body, which we believe never once deterred' a determined suicide.

Apparent death has been the subject of much discussion, and premature interment the object of universal apprehension. Numerous are the tales told on this subject, many of which are exaggerated, and the greater number probably false. It is, indeed, possible that a person not yet dead may be interred; but it is highly improbable that any one should, in such a situation, recover their senses and recollection; for before these returned they must be suffocated by the want of air. The complaints, in which such apparent dissolution is most common, are the spasmi and comata of Dr. Cullen, drunkenness, excessive evacuations, narcotic poisons, strangulation, drowning, breathing deleterious gases, excessive cold, sudden and violent terror, and violent passions.

The want of motion, or feeling, of respiration and pulsation in the arteries, are neither singly nor in conjunction signs of death. The motion of the carotids, in the greater number of instances, continues longest, and their state should be most carefully examined. The experiment proposed by M. Bruhier is, to draw down the lower jaw, and if it approaches spontaneously the upper jaw, he thinks it a conclusive sign of some life remaining; but this may happen from the elasticity of the ligaments and other causes. It is certainly an equi-vocal proof. The eyes furnish the most certain signs, independent of putrefaction. If their transparency is lost, the eyeball sunk and wrinkled, and the pupil dilated so as not to contract by the strongest light, resuscitation is no longer in our power. The sunk features, in the eyes of experience, are a proof almost equally satisfactory; but putrefaction furnishes the only unequivocal symptom. Yet this we cannot always wait for. If any legal question depends on the state of the internal parts, dissection must be attempted at an earlier stage, since putrefaction changes every appearance by which we are enabled to decide. In cases of the slightest doubt, it is recommended to commence the dissection in the parts less essential to life, that if the stimulus of the wound excite the action of the remaining powers no considerable injury may ensue.