104 Oh ctf lain fraudulent 



bright orange red. They are filled witli a dry loose pul)), and 

 contain many small, flat, kidney-shaped seeds. The taste of 

 capsicum is extremely pungent and acrimonious, setting the 

 mouth, as it were, on fire. 



The principle on which its pungency depends, is soluble in 

 water and in alcohol. 



It is sometimes adulterated with red lead, to prevent it becom- 

 ing bleached on exposure to light. This fiaud may be readily 

 detected by shaking up part of it in a stopped vial containing 

 water iu)pregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen gas, which will 

 cause it speedily to assume a dark muddy black colour. Or the 

 vegetable matter of the pepper may be destroyed, by throwing 

 a mixture of one part of the suspected pepper and three of nitrate 

 of potash (or two of chlorate of potash) into a red hot crucible, 

 in shiall quantities at a time. The mass left behind may then 

 be digested in weak nitric acid, and the solution assayed for lead 

 by water impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen. 



Poisonous Pickles. — Vegetable substances, preserved in the 

 state called pickles, by means of the antiseptic power of vinegar, 

 whose sale frequently depends greatly upon a fine lively green 

 colour ; and the consumption of which, by sea-faring people in 

 particular, is prodigious, are sometimes intentionally coloured by 

 means of copper. Gerkins, French beans, samphire, the green 

 pods of capsicum, and many other pickled vegetable substances, 

 oftener than is perhaps expected, are met with impregnated with 

 this metal. Numerous fatal consequences are known to have 

 ensued from the use of these stimulants of the palate, to which 

 the fresh and pleasing hue has been imparted according to the 

 deadly /br7ww/<:e laid down in some modern cookery books, such 

 as boiling the pickles with halfpence, or suffering them to stand 

 for a considerable period in brazen vessels. 



Dr. Percival * has given an account of " a young lady who 

 amused herself, while her hair was dressing, with eating sam- 

 phire ])ickles impregnated with copper. She soon complained 

 of pain in the stomach ; and, in five days, vomiting commenced, 

 which was incessant for two days. After this, her stomach became 

 j)rodigiously distended; and, in nine days after eating the pickle, 

 death relieved hei from her suffering." 



Among many recipes which modern authors of cookery books 

 have given for imparting a green colour to pickles, the following 

 are particularly deserving of censure ; and it is to be hoped that 

 they will be suppressed in future editions of the works. 



" To pickle Gerkinsf. — " Boil the vinegar in a bell-metal or 

 coj)pcr pot ; pour it boiling hot on your cucumbers." 



* Medical Tninaactiuiis, vol. iv. p. 80. 

 f The Ladies' Library, vol, ii. p. 20^. 



