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Nor was there the least suspicion of any person having administered the poison to the deceased. Cantharides had not been seen in the house; and there was not an individual on whom any just imputation could fall.
In the absence, then, of any positive evidence, to shew that poison had been administered, the fair inference was, that the state of inflammation which was observed in the stomach, kidneys, uterus, bladder, and internal parts of generation, together with the congestion of the brain and lungs, was the effect of natural disease.
There was nothing in the rapidity of the progress of the symptoms, which was very peculiar. Cholera carries off its victim with far greater speed. In common inflammation, too, of the stomach and bowels, death often occurs at an earlier period. It also happens, in the more severe forms of fever, that patients are hurried to their grave in a shorter time; and I have seen some rapid cases of fever, in which the mucous membranes were as extensively inflamed as in this instance. Such things do not very commonly occur in the fevers of this climate, but they occasionally do happen.
