A Torpid Suppurative Process is commonly the result of a more profound injury, and is seen in the shape of abscesses and sinuses of the muscular coat, and of the condensed cellular sheath of the oesophagus. When it ceases, it invariably leaves very considerable contraction of the tissues and strictures of the kind last described; ulcerative perforation of adjoining passages (trachea, bronchi) may follow; death frequently ensues from phthisis, or by exhaustion from dysphagia.

The same occurrences may, though less frequently, be observed in the membranes of the stomach.

The operation of arsenic is limited to the mucous membrane of the stomach, but it frequently produces no local effect; and this is particularly the case where the symptoms of poisoning and death follow rapidly after the introduction of small quantities. When present, it is an exudative inflammatory process, accompanied by softening and sloughing. At one or more points, to which a white pulverulent substance (arsenic) happens to attach itself to a larger amount, the mucous membrane appears plicated and tumefied, reddened, invested by a detached epithelium, and a tawny exudation; its tissue is softened, pultaceous; and at the spot where the white grains of arsenic are attached, it is converted into a yellowish or greenish-brown slough. Between these solitary foci, from which reddened folds of the mucous membrane proceed, the inner surface of the stomach presents at many parts a perfectly normal structure.