LEAD. 
§§ 817 , 818 .] 
The aqueous extract contained 1*5 mgrtn. of lead sulphate. In neither 
of the cases did the pathologist ascertain the total weight of the brain, 
but, presuming that the weight was an average weight, and that the lead 
in the remainder of the brain was similarly distributed, the amount of 
lead calculated as sulphate would amount to 117 mgrms. From these 
results it appears to the authors probable that lead forms a substitution 
compound with some of the organic brain matters. This view would 
explain the absence of changes apparent to the eye found in so many of 
the fatal cases of lead encephalopathy. 
§ 817. Lead taken for a long time causes the blood to be impregnated 
with uric acid. In 136 cases of undoubted gout, 18 per cent, of the 
patients were found to follow lead occupations, and presented signs of 
lead impregnation. 1 
Ellenberger and Hofmeister 2 found that, with chronic poisoning of 
sheep with lead, excretion of hippuric acid ceased, and the output of 
uric acid was diminished. This may be explained by the formation of 
glycocol being arrested. 
§ 818. There are some facts on record which would seem to counten¬ 
ance the belief that disease, primarily caused by an inorganic body like 
lead, may be transmitted. M. Paul ( e.g.) has related the history of the 
offspring (thirty-two in number) of seven men who were suffering from 
lead-poisoning—eleven were prematurely born and one still-born ; of the 
remaining twenty, eight died in the first year, four in the second, and 
five in the third year, so that of the whole thirty-two only three survived 
three years. 
The influence of the poison on pregnant women is, indeed, very 
deleterious. M. Paul noted that in four women who were habitually 
exposed to the influence of lead, and had fifteen pregnancies, ten termi¬ 
nated by abortion, two by premature confinement, three went the full 
term—but one of the three children was born dead, a second only lived 
twenty-four hours ; so that, out of the whole fifteen, one only lived fully. 
In another observation of M. Paul, five women had two natural confine¬ 
ments before being exposed to lead. After exposure, the history of the 
thirty-six pregnancies of these women is as follows :—there were twenty- 
six abortions (from two to five months), one premature confinement, two 
infants born dead, and five born alive, four of whom died in the first year. 
Chronic poisoning may be nearly always accounted for by the inhaling 
of lead dust, or by the actual swallowing of some form of lead ; but, if we 
are to accept the fact narrated by the late Dr Taylor, viz. that he him¬ 
self had an attack of lead colic from sitting in a room for a few hours 
daily in which there was a large canvas covered with white lead and 
1 “ On Lead Impregnation in Relation to Gout,” by Sir Dyce Duckworth, M.D., 
St Barth. Hosp. Reports, vol. xvii., 1881. 
2 Arch. f. wiss. u. pract. Thierheilk., Bd. x., 1884. 
