accidental Use of White Lead. 99 



its containing a metallic poison. This Hollands geneva 

 had been bought at the king's excise warehouse in the town, 

 where many hundred oallons were annually sold, that had 

 been seized by the excise officers from persons attempting 

 to smuoi>le it into this country. The gentleman, grieved 

 at the foss of his child, which he could no longer fail to 

 attribute to its true source, brought up the chief managing 

 otficer before the magistrates; when he confessed that the 

 whole of the quantity of Hollands sold at the last sale had 

 been iinprciinated with sugar of lead, for the purpose of 

 deptiving the spirit of the colour which it alwavs obtained 

 by being kept for some time in the tubs in which it. was 

 brought over sea by the smugglers, and the loss of which 

 colour enhanced its price by three or four shillings a gallon. 

 This circumstance afforded an easy explication of the cause 

 of the malady which had so generally prevailed ; and hence- 

 forth none other than coloured Hollands were exposed to 

 sale at the excise waiehouse, as had been the custom pre- 

 vious to this scientific attempt of the above officer, at once 

 to increase the kinji's revenue and his own. 



This recital stfvingly illustrates the obscurity in which 

 the occasional causes of disease may sometimes be invol- 

 ved ; and, as a proof of the difficulty of raising suspicion 

 of the deleterious quality of substances, I may mention, 

 that among those who died on this occasion was a dissent-* 

 ing clergyman, about sixty years of age, a man of jrood 

 sense and observation, of temperate habits (if the daily cus- 

 tom of taking a glass of spirits and water after supper is 

 not to be considered a deviation from the rules of temper- 

 ance), whose V, ife carried on the business of a druggist 3 

 and it maybe supposed they were both acquainted with the 

 noxious qualities of the preparations of lead : yet it ap- 

 peared that the sugar of lead with which this spirit was im- 

 pregnated had been bought at their house bv the exciseman 

 himself, and in. quantities of 28lbs. at a time ; but it did 

 not occur to either of them, or to his medical attendant, 

 that the disorder was coimected with the drinking of the 

 Hollands. It is tf» be remembered, that in the early stages 

 we have no certain diagnostic signs by which the cohca 

 pictoiuuTi can be distinguished from the other species of 

 colic ; it is oidy by its ultimate effects, or by a knowledge 

 of its exciting causes, that we can confidently pronounce 

 concerning the existence of the disease. 



W. Shearman. 



G2 XXII. Me- 



