of the disease occurring among brass-founders and other artizans who work with copper.[1] Tronchin quotes Scheuchzer for a set of well-marked cases in a convent of monks, where the malady was supposed to have been traced to all the utensils for preparing and keeping their food having been made of untinned copper.[2] The same author mentions two cases, one of which came under his immediate notice, where the apparent cause was the long-continued use of antimonial preparations internally.[3] Mérat likewise found a few iron-smiths and white-iron-smiths in the lists kept at one of the Parisian hospitals.[4] Chevallier alleges that colic occurs at times among money-changers at Paris, and others who constantly handle silver.[5] Cases have even been noticed by Mérat among varnishers, plasterers, quarrymen, stone-hewers, marble-workers, statuaries, saltpetre-makers;[6] and Tronchin enumerates among its causes the immoderate use of acid wine or of cider, checked perspiration, sea-scurvy, and melancholy. But the only substance besides lead, whose operation in producing colica pictonum has been traced with any degree of probability, is copper; and even among artizans who work with copper the disease is very rare. As to the other tradesmen mentioned by Mérat, it is so very uncommon among them, that we may safely impute it, when it does occur, to some other agent besides what the trade of the individual exposes him to; and in general the secret introduction of lead into the body may be presumed to be the real cause. Still, however, the connection of colica pictonum with other causes besides the poison of lead is upheld by so many facts, and is believed by so many authorities, that this disease cannot be safely assumed, even in its most characteristic form, as supplying undoubted evidence of the introduction of lead into the system. Dr. Burton thinks it will when the blue line at the edge of the gums is seen.
The work of Mérat contains some interesting numerical documents, illustrative of the trades which expose artisans to colica pictonum. They are derived from the lists kept at the hospital of La Charité in Paris, during the years 1776 and 1811. The total number of cases of colica pictonum in both years was 279. Of these, 241 were artisans whose trades exposed them to the poison of lead, namely, 148 painters, 28 plumbers, 16 potters, 15 porcelain-makers, 12 lapidaries, 9 colour-grinders, 3 glass-blowers, 2 glaziers, 2 toy-men, 2 shoemakers, a printer, a lead-miner, a leaf-beater, a shot-manufacturer. Of the remainder, 17 belonged to trades in which they were exposed to copper, namely, 7 button-makers, 5 brass-founders, 4 braziers, and a copper-turner. The remaining twenty-one were tradesmen, who worked little, or not at all with either metal, namely, 4 varnishers, 2 gilders, 2 locksmiths, a hatter, a saltpetre-maker, a winegrocer, a vine-dresser, a labourer, a distiller, a stone-cutter, a calciner,[7] a soldier, a house-servant, a waiter, and an attorney's clerk.—Age or youth seems not to afford any protection against the poison. Of the 279 cases, 24
