Many instances might be quoted of spring waters which act with inconvenient or dangerous rapidity on lead. But it is hardly worth while mentioning more than one or two of these, because the nature of the waters has been seldom described.
A striking example was related by Dr. Wall of Worcester. A family in that town, consisting of the parents and twenty-one children, were constantly liable to stomach and bowel complaints; and eight of the children and both parents died in consequence. Their house being sold after their death, the purchaser found it necessary to repair the pump; because the cylinder and cistern were riddled with holes and as thin as a sieve. The plumber who renewed it informed Dr. Wall that he had repaired it several times before, and in particular had done so not four years before the former occupant died.[1] The nature of the water was not determined. Most of the water around Worcester is very hard; but this will not account for its operation in the instance now described.
Another incident of the same kind, but hardly so unequivocal in its circumstances, was related in 1823 by Dr. Yeats of Tunbridge. A plumber undertook to supply that town with water for domestic purposes, and in 1814 laid a course of leaden pipes for a quarter of a mile. In the subsequent year many cases of lead colic occurred among the inhabitants who were supplied by those pipes; and one lady particularly, who was a great water-drinker, lost the use of her limbs for some months. The inhabitants naturally became alarmed; iron pipes were substituted; and no case of colic appeared afterwards. Mr. Brande analyzed the water which had passed through the pipes and detected lead in it, while at the same time none could be detected at the source.[2] Some uncertainty was supposed to have been thrown over these statements by the analytic researches of Drs. Thomson, Scudamore, and Prout, and Mr. Children.[3] But water like that in question can scarce fail to act powerfully on lead in favourable circumstances; for according to the analysis of Dr. Thomson it is extremely pure, as it contains only a 38,000th part of saline matter, three-fourths of which are a feebly protecting salt, the muriate of soda.[4] I am satisfied, therefore, from my experiments, and the facts which follow, that no such water could be safely conveyed through new lead pipes; and that it would be dangerous even to keep it long in a lead cistern. It is difficult to account for the failure of the gentlemen above-mentioned to find lead in the water, except by supposing that they had analyzed what had been exposed for some time to the air, and deposited its oxide of lead in the form of carbonate.
Since my attention was first turned to this subject, the three following incidents have occurred to me, which show the danger of conveying very pure water in long lead pipes. 1. A gentleman in Dumfries-shire resolved to bring to his house in leaden pipes the
