BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. eit. 
dinary. For if the lime-compound is really dissolved by the 
gastric juice, why is not the whole of this juice used up in dissolv- 
ing the carbonate? How is any of it left to digest the natural 
food (oats in this case) of the animal? And how ¢an the animals 
continue to live and thrive for weeks, as they do, if there is a great 
quantity of soluble lime salts (chloride and lactate of calcium) 
continually formed within them? 
Carbonate of Lead. After the trials with mixtures of ochre and 
whiting, the mice were fed with pure putty and oats for a day or 
two and were then given putty with which a certain proportion of . 
white-lead * had been mixed. During the first day the three mice 
ate 5 balls of putty made from a mixture of 9 grammes of whiting 
and 1 grm. of the lead carbonate, beside their regular ration of 
oats. Next day they were given 4 balls made from a mixture con- 
taining 1 part of the lead carbonate and 3 parts of whiting, but 
they ate only a small part of each of the balls. On the third day 
four fresh balls were given similar to those of the second day, and 
the mice ate between two and three of them. Three similar balls 
were given on the fourth day, but only a very small portion of 
them was eaten, and next morning one of the mice was found 
dead. ‘The two remaining mice received nothing but oats and 
water during the next twenty-four hours in order to make sure of 
their viability, and they were then offered four balls made from a 
mixture of 4 lead carbonate and J whiting. They ate two of these 
balls. Next day they were given four balls made from a mixture 
of 3 parts lead carbonate and 1 part whiting, and they ate two of 
them. On the following day 4 similar balls were given and all of 
them were eaten. Finally the two mice were given four balls 
made from pure carbonate of lead, without any whiting, and a 
small quantity was eaten from each ball, perhaps as much taken 
altogether as would amount to one ball, but both the mice died 
in the course of the day. 
It would be of interest, in this connection, to study the question 
whether the protective influence of the lime carbonate, or some 
other analogous compound, might not be put to practical use in 
the case of ordinary paints. May it not be possible, I mean, to 
‘* adulterate ” white-lead in such wise that the colic of house- 
painters could be diminished or done away with? I am well aware 
* The material actually employed was chemically pure carbonate of lead, 
* Plumbum carbonic. puriss.,” from Marquart of Bonn. 
