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which the anatomist may have to contend in his examination of this organ, a state of vascular congestion, arising after death, from the effect of gravitation. In attending however to the position of the head, and to the circumstances above mentioned, it will not be difficult to establish a just diagnosis upon these occasions. Before cutting into the brain, we should observe whether the convolutions are furrowed as usual, for when much fluid is contained in the ventricles, as in hydrocephalus, the sulci are more or less obliterated. Such a change, therefore, will offer a precaution to the anatomist, to proceed slowly in his dissection, so that the accumulated fluid may not escape. Where a person has been suddenly killed, while in a state of health, the ventricles will, on examination, appear merely lubricated with a fluid; but in cases where the patient has died after protracted disease, more or less serum will be found in these cavities. In our examination of the substance of the brain, we ought to notice its consistence and tenacity, for in many recorded cases, a part of the medullary mass has been found so morbidly soft as to have assumed nearly the consistence of custard; and it has been said to have occurred in cases of fatuity; it seems, however, more correct to consider it as the effects of inflammation: the phenomenon must be carefully distinguished from that natural deliquescence which the whole of the brain undergoes after death, when in an incipient stage of putrefaction. In some instances, the texture of the brain has been found tougher than is natural, and even to have been dry and friable. (See our observations upon the brain in cases of mania, vol. i, p. 327.) Scrophulous and encysted tumours, hydatids, abscesses, and extravasated blood, may also occur, and its cavities may be