cider of Herefordshire, but might be detected both in the ripe cider, and more especially in the must, of Devonshire:—that from eighteen bottles of cider, a year in bottle, 4-1/2 grains of metallic lead were procured.[1] The accuracy of these facts, and the soundness of the conclusions which Sir George Baker drew from them have been universally admitted; and lead is now, I believe, completely excluded from the cider apparatus.
Notwithstanding the notoriety of these facts, accidents from adulterated cider seem still to occur occasionally in France. So recently as 1841 a set of cases which presented the incipient symptoms of lead colic were traced by MM. Chevallier and Ollivier to cider having been adulterated with lead to the amount of nearly two grains and a half per quart, in consequence of a publican having kept his cider for two days in a vessel lined with lead.[2]
If lead is previously oxidated, the presence of vegetable acids in articles kept in contact with it is still more likely to give rise to a poisonous impregnation, than in the case of lead itself.
Of accidental adulterations of this kind the most important is that which arises from the action of vegetable acids on the glazing of earthenware. This glaze is well known to contain generally a considerable quantity of oxide of lead, and in consequence is more or less easily dissolved by vegetable acids. A good example has been noticed by Dr. Beck.[3] A family in Massachusetts, consisting of eight persons, were all seized with spasmodic colic, obstinate costiveness, and vomiting; and the disease was satisfactorily traced to a store of stewed apples, which had been kept some months in an earthenware vessel and had corroded the lead glazing. Another interesting example has been described by Dr. Hohnbaum of Hildburghausen. A family of five persons were all violently affected for a long time with spasmodic colic, and some with partial palsy. After examining many articles of food, Dr. Hohnbaum at last found that the vinegar for dressing their salads was kept in a large earthenware vessel capable of holding eight or ten quarts, and glazed with lead; that an ounce of vinegar remaining in the vessel contained no less than nine grains of lead; and that the whole glazing of the vessel was completely dissolved.[4] Accidents like this appear from the statements of the same author to have been common in Germany not long ago. Luzuriaga attributes the great prevalence of colic in Madrid and the neighbourhood to the general use in the kitchen of earthenware glazed with lead.[5] Jacob imputes it to the same cause.[6] But others have doubted the accuracy of this explanation.
The effect of acids on lead glazing appears to be variable. Some-*
- ↑ On the Cause of the Endemical Colic of Devonshire. Transactions of the London Coll. of Phys. i. ii. and iii.
- ↑ Annales d'Hygiène-Publique, 1842, xxvii. 104.
- ↑ Elements of Medical Jurisprudence, ii. 319.
- ↑ Zeitschrift für die Staatsarzneikunde, 1827, xiii. 151.
- ↑ Mérat de la Colique Métallique.
- ↑ Diss. Inaug. sur la Collique de Madrid. Analyzed in Corvisart's Journal de Médecine, xxxiv. 208.
