30 
of snuffs, which he had found to be more or less impregnated 
with lead compounds, especially the black rappee, and he 
found on further investigation that the presence of lead was 
due to the corrosive action of the snuff upon the lead foil used 
for packing it. He also stated that it was his intention to 
examine several other substances usually packed in lead foils, 
and that he would lay the results of his observations before 
the Society, as he thought it highly desirable to make the 
public aware of such sources of injury and to induce manufac- 
turers to adopt means to avoid inflicting this serious evil on 
their consumers. 
Dr. Calvert concluded by stating that he had been engaged 
for the last few months in investigating the action of the 
Manchester Waterworks water on various kinds of leaden 
pipes, and that he was arriving at such results as would show 
the necessity for serious consideration on the part of the 
inhabitants of this city with respect to the evils arising from 
the introduction of the water into their dwellings through 
leaden pipes. 
Being requested by the Chairman to give his opinion, 
Dr. Angus Smith said that he had never found any 
Manchester water which had passed through lead pipes to be 
entirely free from lead. At the same time, the quantity is in 
almost all cases so small that, as far as we know, it can 
produce no bad effects, and is practically equal to nothing. 
There is, however, a great difficulty in knowing what is hurt- 
ful ; medical men had not settled the point. Persons said to 
be suffering from lead paralysis were known to have taken 
water with as little as one-hundredth of a grain of oxide of 
lead per gallon, whereas it was considered generally not to 
