FOOTNOTES:

[114] Fungi plerique veneno turgent. Linn. Amæn. Acad.

[115] Quæ voluptas tanta ancipitis cibi?—Plin. Nat. Hist. xxii. 23.

[116] Sen. Ep. 95.

Poisonous Soda Water.

The beverage called soda water is frequently contaminated both with copper and lead; these metals being largely employed in the construction of the apparatus for preparing the carbonated water,[117] and the great excess of carbonic acid which the water contains, particularly enables it to act strongly on the metallic substances of the apparatus; a truth, of which the reader will find no difficulty in convincing himself, by suffering a stream of sulphuretted hydrogen gas to pass through the water.—See p. 70.

FOOTNOTES:

[117] Some manufacturers have been hence induced to construct the apparatus for manufacturing soda water wholly either of earthenware or of glass. Mr. Johnston, of Greek Street, Soho, was the first who pointed out to the public the absolute necessity of this precaution.

Food poisoned by Copper Vessels.

Many kinds of viands are frequently impregnated with copper, in consequence of the employment of cooking utensils made of that metal. By the use of such vessels in dressing food, we are daily liable to be poisoned; as almost all acid vegetables, as well as sebaceous or pinguid substances, employed in culinary preparations, act upon copper, and dissolve a portion of it; and too many examples are met with of fatal consequences having ensued from eating food which had been dressed in copper vessels not well cleaned from the oxide of copper which they had contracted by being exposed to the action of air and moisture.

The inexcusable negligence of persons who make use of copper vessels has been productive of mortality, so much more terrible, as they have exerted their action on a great number of persons at once. The annals of medicine furnish too many examples in support of this assertion, to render it necessary to insist more upon it here.

Mr. Thiery, who wrote a thesis on the noxious quality of copper, observes, that "our food receives its quantity of poison in the kitchen by the use of copper pans and dishes. The brewer mingles poison in our beer, by boiling it in copper vessels. The sugar-baker employs copper pans; the pastry-cook bakes our tarts in copper moulds; the confectioner uses copper vessels: the oilman boils his pickles in copper or brass vessels, and verdigris is plentifully formed by the action of the vinegar upon the metal.

"Though, after all, a single dose be not mortal, yet a quantity of poison, however small, when taken at every meal, must produce more fatal effects than are generally apprehended; and different constitutions are differently affected by minute quantities of substances that act powerfully on the system."

The author of a tract, entitled, "Serious Reflections on the Dangers attending the Use of Copper Vessels," asserts that a numerous and frightful train of diseases is occasioned by the poisonous effects of pernicious matter received into the stomach insensibly with our victuals.

Dr. Johnston[118] gives an account of the melancholy catastrophe of three men being poisoned, after excruciating sufferings, in consequence of eating food cooked in an unclean copper vessel, on board the Cyclops frigate; and, besides these, thirty-three men became ill from the same cause.

The following case[119] is related by Sir George Baker, M. D.

"Some cyder, which had been made in a gentleman's family, being thought too sour, was boiled with honey in a brewing vessel, the rim of which was capped with lead. All who drank this liquor were seized with a bowel colic, more or less violently. One of the servants died very soon in convulsions; several others were cruelly tortured a long time. The master of the family, in particular, notwithstanding all the assistance which art could give him, never recovered his health; but died miserably, after having almost three years languished under a most tedious and incurable malady."

Too much care and attention cannot be taken in preserving all culinary utensils of copper, in a state unexceptionably fit for their destined purpose. They should be frequently tinned, and kept thoroughly clean, nor should any food ever be suffered to remain in them for a longer time than is absolutely necessary to their preparation for the table. But the sure preventive of its pernicious effect, is, to banish copper utensils from the kitchen altogether.

The following wholesome advice on this subject is given to cooks by the author of an excellent cookery book.[120]

"Stew-pans and soup-kettles should be examined every time they are used; these, and their covers, must be kept perfectly clean and well tinned, not only on the inside, but about a couple of inches on the outside; so much mischief arises from their getting out of repair; and, if not kept nicely tinned, all your work will be in vain; the broths and soups will look green and dirty, and taste bitter and poisonous, and will be spoiled both for the eye and palate, and your credit will be lost; and as the health, and even the life, of the family depends upon this; the cook may be sure her employer had rather pay the tin-man's bill than the doctor's."

The senate of Sweden, in the year 1753, prohibited copper vessels, and ordered that none but such as were made of iron should be used in their fleet and armies.

FOOTNOTES:

[118] Johnston's Essay on Poison, p. 102.

[119] Medical Transactions, vol. i. p. 213.

[120] Apicius Redivivus, p. 91.

Food Poisoned by Leaden Vessels.

Various kinds of food used in domestic economy, are liable to become impregnated with lead.

The glazing of the common cream-coloured earthen ware, which is composed of an oxide of lead, readily yields to the action of vinegar and saline compounds; and therefore jars and pots of this kind of stone ware, are wholly unfit to contain jellies of fruits, marmalade, and similar conserves. Pickles should in no case be deposited in cream-coloured glazed earthenware.

The custom which still prevails in some parts of this country of keeping milk in leaden vessels for the use of the dairy, is very improper.

"In Lancashire[121] the dairies are furnished with milk-pans made of lead: and when Mr. Parks expostulated with some individuals on the danger of this practice, he was told that leaden milk-pans throw up the cream much better than vessels of any other kind.

"In some parts of the north of England it is customary for the inn-keepers to prepare mint-salad by bruising and grinding the vegetable in a large wooden bowl with a ball of lead of twelve or fourteen pounds weight. In this operation the mint is cut, and portions of the lead are ground off at every revolution of the ponderous instrument. In the same county, it is a common practice to have brewing-coppers constructed with the bottom of copper and the whole sides of lead."

The baking of fruit tarts in cream-coloured earthenware, and the salting and preserving of meat in leaden pans, are no less objectionable. All kinds of food which contain free vegetable acids, or saline preparations, attack utensils covered with a glaze, in the composition of which lead enters as a component part. The leaden beds of presses for squeezing the fruit in cyder countries, have produced incalculable mischief. These consequences never follow, when the lead is combined with tin; because this metal, being more eager for oxidation, prevents the solution of the lead.

When we consider the various unsuspected means by which the poisons of lead and copper gain admittance into the human body, a very common but dangerous instance presents itself: namely, the practice of painting toys, made for the amusement of children, with poisonous substances, viz. red lead, verdigris, &c. Children are apt to put every thing, especially what gives them pleasure, into their mouths; the painting of toys with colouring substances that are poisonous, ought therefore to be abolished; a practice which lies the more open to censure, as it is of no real utility.

FOOTNOTES:

[121] Park's Chemical Essays, vol. v. p. 193.

INDEX.

THE END.