LEAD IN CANNED VEGETABLES. 1019 



quantities of lead into the system is followed eventually by tlie most 

 serious results. Painters' colic, lead palsy, and other serious diseases 

 well known to physicians, are the direct effects of the continual ex- 

 posure of the system to the influence of minute portions of lead salts. 

 Therefore the greatest care should be exercised in the preparation of 

 canned foods to exclude every possibility of the ingestion of lead. 

 Even tin salts are poisonous, but not to the extent of lead, so that the 

 presence of a minute portion of tin in canned vegetables, coming from 

 the erosion of the cans containing them, is not a matter of such serious 

 import as the presence of lead. Perhaps it would be quite impossible 

 to exclude tin absolutely from canned goods when they are canned in 

 tin, but it is possible to exclude the salts of lead. This can be done 

 by requiring that the tin shall not contain more than, say, 1 per cent 

 of lead, and, in the second place, that the solder which is employed shall 

 be as free from lead as possible. In Germany the solder employed in 

 sealing the cans is not allowed to contain over 10 per cent of lead, 

 while in this country the analyses of numerous samples of the solder 

 employed show that it contains fully 50 per cent of lead. In addi- 

 tion to this there is no care taken to prevent the solder from com- 

 ing in contact with the contents of the can. It is a rare thing to care- 

 fully examine the contents of a can without finding pellets of solder 

 somewhere therein. Often on examining the inside of a can it is found 

 that large surfaces of solder on the seams are exposed to the action of 

 the acid contents. The result of all this is, as will be found by con- 

 sulting the analytical data which follow, that lead is a very common 

 constituent of canned goods. 



Another great source of danger from lead has been disclosed by the 

 analytical work, viz, in the use of glass vessels closed with lead tops 

 or with rubber pads in which sulphate of lead is found to exist. As a 

 sample of this maybe mentioned the goods of Eugene Du Eaix, of Bor- 

 deaux. All the samples of his goods examined were put up in lead- 

 topped glass bottles. All except one contained salicylic acid and all of 

 them save one contained copper. In one of these samples lead existed 

 to the enormous amount of 35.2 nag per kilo ; in another 15.6 mg per kilo 

 were found, while in one sample, viz, No. 10937, the extraordinary quan- 

 tity of 46 mg per kilo was discovered. 



It is not difficult to see how goods covered with lead tops can be con- 

 taminated. It may be claimed that these goods should never be turned 

 upside down, but the shippers pay little attention to such directions 

 and the result is that the goods maybe kept for days or even weeks in 

 such a position as to bring the contents of the can in contact with the 

 lead tops or with the rubber pads containing lead. The constant con- 

 sumer of such goods, therefore, must run some risk of being exposed to 

 the insidious inroads of some of the diseases peculiar to the action of 

 small quantities of lead upon the human organism. It is not too much 

 to ask that the law should require the canners to exercise the utmost 

 care to exclude all dangers of this kind. 



