340 On the Construction of Kitchen 



Several years ago a variety of attempts was made in 

 Sweden to improve cooking utensils made of iron, by 

 covering them on the inside with a kind of enamel, to 

 protect them from rust ; and since that time a consid- 

 erable manufacture of cast iron boilers and stewpans, 

 covered within with white enamel, was established by 

 Count Heinitz, on his estate in Silesia ; but this scheme 

 has not succeeded entirely, owing to the difficulty of 

 finding an enamel capable of uniting with iron, the 

 expansion of which with heat shall be so nearly equal to 

 the expansion of iron as not to be liable to crack and 

 fly off upon being suddenly exposed to heat and to 

 cold ; and even were it possible to compose an enamel 

 that would withstand the effects of the heat and the 

 cold, and the blows to which it would be exposed in 

 the business of the kitchen, there would still remain a 

 very important point to be ascertained, which is whether 

 the matter of which the enamel is composed is not 

 itself of a poisonous nature, and whether there is not 

 reason to apprehend that it might communicate its 

 deleterious qualities to the food. 



Lead is an essential ingredient in most, if not all, 

 enamels, and as its effects are known to be extremely 

 pernicious to health, under all its various forms, when 

 taken internally, it would be highly necessary to ascer- 

 tain, by the most rigid experimental investigation, 

 whether the enamel of kitchen utensils contains any 

 lead or other noxious metals or unwholesome substance ; 

 and, if this be the case, whether such poisonous sub- 

 stance be liable to be corroded and dissolved, or mixed 

 in any other manner with the food. 



It is possible that a poisonous substance may be so 

 fixed, on being mixed and united with other substances, 



