. 
800 
prescribed am uniformity in weighing 
and measuring wiedicines, have made 
the written signs of those measures 
somewhat less liable to mistake? How 
coukl the ‘superintending care of the 
college expunge the familiar term calo- 
mel, and allow it to differ only by a small 
particle from the equally unpractised 
name given to corrosive sublimate? What 
practitioner will not tremble to order for 
an infant two grains of the sub-murias 
MEDICINE, SURGERY, ANATOMY, &c. . 
hydrargyri, when the same quantity of 
the murias hydrargyri will produce inevi- 
table destruction in the severest agonies. 
We therefore still think a reform is 
wanting in a few essential points; and 
we should hope that the system of secus 
rity will in time come to be considered as 
the leading principle in. an art in which 
the preservation of human life is so 
deeply interested. 
Art. LX. Researches into the Properties of Spring Water; with Medical Cautions 
(illustrated by Cases), against the Use of Lead in the Construction of Pumps, Waters 
Pipes, Cisterns, Sc. By Wittiam Lame, M. D. Jate Fellow 
lecey Cambridge: 8vo. pp. 204. 
THIS treatise is dedicated with pecu- 
liar propriety to Sir G. Baker, whose 
valuable paper on the same subject long 
ago directed the public attention to the 
baneful effects of the poison of lead, in- 
troduced slowly and insidiously into the 
system, by forming a part of a common 
daily beverage. 
Dr. Lambe pursues the subject much 
farther, and his assertions, if well 
founded, would Iead us to suspect almost 
every liquid article gf diet which has 
been prepared by water that has ever 
been in contact with lead in any form. 
‘wo points therefore are to be made 
out, the one the existence of lead in all 
common waters, as generally employed; 
the other, a just discrimination of the 
symptoms which may fairly be supposed 
‘to arise from this poison. The author 
first considers the latter of these. 
It is evident that the proof required 
of a very extensive use of poisoned water 
will be, to discover some disease equally 
extensive, the progress of which bears 
an exact ratio with the prevalence of the 
morbid cause. Individual cases will not 
suffice, nor will it be enough to alledge 
peculiar susceptibility of constitution, if 
the supposed morbid symptoms can 
only be very~ partially detected; the 
analogy of all other metallic poisons or 
medicines, points Out so great an vni- 
formity in their operation on the human 
body; that there is no reason to suppose 
it, would fail in this instance. The fol- 
lowing is a case in point. 
«¢ However minute may be the quantity 
of noxious matter, taken up by most waters, 
I am persuaded, that in most cases It 1s 
enough to have a sensible influence on ten- 
derand delicate habits. As tar as I can con- 
jecture by the appearance with preciptiants, 
there are very few waters more purein them- 
selves, than those of the Priory pools, which 
of St. Fobn’s Cols 
su pply the water-works of the town of War- 
wick ; and few which are less tainted by 
passing through the leaden pipes. The dis- 
tance from the town is nota quarter ofa 
mile, and many of the pipes are still of wood: 
I cannot attribute any serious illness to the 
use of these waters alone; though I must 
confess that my attention, till within this 
last year and half, not having been directed” 
to this point, many facts illustrative of thé 
a Sa may have escaped me. But in one 
amily, which has now used no other than 
these waters for four years, three young’ 
ladies may be suspected to have received in- 
jury from them. One has, during the last 
two years, become much thinner, and has 
frequeutly slight, pains of the bowels: all 
have lost their colour and the healthiness of 
their complexion; and one has repeatedly 
regained the freshness of health, by occa- 
sional absence ftom the town. How soon it 
vanishes on her s¢turn home has been alrea- 
dy mentioned Aj this would not be called 
disease, strictly speaking; but it would pro- 
bably terminate in disease of the most serioug 
nature, if the cause were neglected or mis- 
understood. 
«©The great minuteness of the dose is int 
part compensated by the very abundant use 
which is made of the vehicle of the poison, 
Besides drinking it pure, we use it hourly in 
our tea and coffee, in our beer and our 
domestic wines. It enters into our bread, 
and many of the preparations used at our 
tables. “It were idle to enumerate all the 
ways in which Wwe are constantly receiving 
it. When we employ water in-our kitchens - 
for boiling our food, a portion adheres to, 
and is probably absorbed by the meat, and by 
the vegetables, in abundance.” 
If the whole town of Warwick had for 
many years been receiving this slow poi- 
son, could the author have found only 
three young ladies as sufferers from its 
ravages? 
The application of the author’s hys 
pothesis .toghis metropolis-is still racre 
vague. 
