Mortification presents itself in various forms: the mucous membrane may become a grayish-white, or whitish-yellow, dry and rotten, or moist and lacerable, eschar: such is the change that results from pressure in strangulated hernia, from excessive distension and extension, or when it is separated from the subjacent tissues, through which it is supplied with bloodvessels.

Or, after having suffered absolute stagnation of the current of blood, it may degenerate into a dark-brown, or dark-greenish, shreddy friable substance, which gives out the extremely offensive smell of sphacelus, and is more or less infiltrated.

Or else, during the softening of an inflammatory product, which is in-filtered through the tissue of the membrane, and generally also is combined with an aphthous exudation upon its surface, diffused, or more commonly circumscribed portions of the membrane degenerate into a shreddy and crumbling, or a uniformly pulpy mass, that is variously discolored, and has a very offensive odor.

When affected with the actual sloughing described under the first-named forms, the mucous membrane generally shares that condition with other adjoining structures.