Perfumed distilled waters, such as orange-flower water, often con tain lead in solution, derived from the solder cementing the copper vessels In which these are Imported, whenever lead has been employed instead of tin solder.
No kind of adulteration or impregnation with lead, from accident or ignorance, is more common than that of wine or cyder. Even a single shot of lead left by accident in a bottle after cleaning has produced severe colic; and the more extensive use of the salts of lead to fine wines, as it is termed, that is, to remove their acid taste and make them sweet, has occasioned most serious consequences. In the cyder s, and in the worms of stills, lead was formerly employed, but it now nearly banished from use. Lead is sometimes employed either ignorantly or fraudulently, to render tart and bad wines marketable. The lead, if present, may be detected by appropriate tests, among others by flahnentann's wine test, made by putting into a small phial 16 grains of sulphuret of lime, prepared in the dry way, and 20 grains of cream of tartar. The phial is to be filled with water, well corked, and occasionally shaken for the space of ten minutes. When the powder hie snbaided, the clear liquor is to be decanted off, and pre served in a well stopped bottle. This liquor, when fresh prepared, die covers lead by causing a dark-coloured precipitate. Domestic and British wines, the nature of the fruit used in preparing them un avoidably causing them to be more acid than those prepared from the grape, are moot likely to be impregnated with lead, particularly as in some cookery books• it is ignorantly recommended to sweeten them.
Another Important 'source of impregnation of articles of food with lead is connected with the use of earthenware glazed with lead. Any thing containing vegetable adds, if kept in such vessels, will act on the lead, and may produce poisonous effects. Even milk cannot be kept with safety in leaden-glazed dishes. For all preserves, jellies, fic., Bristol-ware, which is glazed with salt, should be employed. No thing can be more dangerous than to keep vinegar in leaden bottles, or even in jars glazed with lead. The ueo of acetate or sugar of lead to clarify syrups or honey, or to render brandy pale, is to be avoided. Rum, hollands, and geneva are occasionally adulterated with lead, and cause extensive evil. Colouring cheese with red lead Is equally hazardous.
Nitrate of lead in solution in water-1 part of nitrate of lead to 10 parts of water, termed Ledoyen'e disinfectant—la useful put into night. tables, as a destroyer of sulphuretted hydrogen and sulphuret of ammonium. But It is In ferior to menganate of potash. [D tate recresered In snail medicinal doses acetate of lead, which is almost the only salt administered internally, produces a direct action on the secretions of the stomach, combining with the albumen, and forming compounds which are for the most part Insoluble In water and acids, but occa• timidly forming other compounds, which are soluble by the addition of a email quantity of acetic, hydrochloric, or lactic acid. As these
acids exist In variable quantities and under different circumstances, the degree and kind of action will be different, according as the lead is die solved and conveyed to distant organs, or as it remains nearly undis. solved and accumulated em the mucous membrane. In the greater number of eases it is very slowly introduced Into the circulation. Even a considerable dose may display merely load effects, exciting irritation and inflammation ; though these are sometimes followed by colic, convulsions, coma, or local palsy, and arnatirosis or deafness.
By a repetition of small closes the secretion of most mucous surfaces is diminished, and constipation occurs ; the heart's action is reduced, and the calibre of the arteries is lessened and exhalation checked : if litemorrhage should exist, that generally Mope. Acetate of lead thus appears to be decidedly sedative and astringent. It nutnifeets its sedative &Toot even when applied externally, and lessens discharges from ulcers, though its application to these is not always safe. Even whitedead (carbonate of load] ointment applied to ulcers has proved fatal.
Acetate of lead should always be dissolved in distilled, not in common water. It is a most improper application to inflamed cornea whenever that is ulcerated, as it forms a white compound which is apt to get imbedded in the cornea.
The diseases in which It proves moat useful are increased discharges, either from mucous surfaces or in hreinorrha•..-es. Vinegar should always be given at the same time. In diarrhoea, dysentery, but, above all, in cholera, when combined with opium, it is a most efficacious Term ly (Dr. Graves, Medical Gazette; Oct. 14, 1837); in fevers attended with diarrhea% It is also useful. Combined with opium on which boiling water has been poured, it forms a most grateful wash to erysipelatous and other inflamed surfaces. In all cases care must be observed in its use. In poisoning by acetate of lead or by litbarge, the best antidotes are sulphate of soda (Glauber salts), sulphate of magnesia (Epsom salts), or alum, to decompose or form an insoluble compound, and afterwards the stomach-pump may be used, or emetics of sulphate of' zinc may be given. [Peisentes' Cows] The whole subject of the action of lead upon the human system has been very fully treated by Dr. James Alderson, in his d Lunileian Lectures, printed in the 2nd vol. of the d Lancet,' for 1852, p. 72, &c.