- cated by Dr. Franklin, the legislature of Massachusetts passed an act
in 1723, prohibiting the use of leaden still-heads and worms in the distillation of spirituous liquors.[1] It is certain that rum has been often impregnated with lead; but it is by no means clear that Dr. Hunter has successfully accounted for the mode in which the adulteration is effected.
Wine has been accidentally impregnated in like manner, in consequence of the bottles having been rinsed with shot, and some of the shot left behind. An interesting example of this has been related in the Philosophical Magazine. Severe abdominal symptoms were caused by a bottle of wine; and the cause was discovered to be the action of the wine on some shot in the bottom of the bottle. The shot had been so completely dissolved, that it crumbled when squeezed between the fingers.[2] The illness in this instance must have been owing to the arsenic contained in the shot, because the quantity of lead was hardly sufficient to excite violent symptoms.—At one time home-made British wines must have been frequently adulterated with lead, from the makers being ignorant of the dangerous nature of the adulteration. Sir G. Baker quotes the following receipt in a popular cookery book of his time: "To hinder wine from turning.—Put a pound of melted lead in fair water into your cask, pretty warm, and stop it close."[3]
But by far the most remarkable adulteration of the kind now under review is that of cider. At one time a disease in every respect the same as the lead colic used to prevail in some of the southwest counties of England at the cider season; and it was generally ascribed, in consequence apparently of the opinion of Huxham, to the working people indulging too freely in their favourite beverage during the season of plenty. The subject, however, was carefully investigated in 1767 by Sir George Baker, who succeeded in proving, that the disease arose from the cider being impregnated with lead, sometimes designedly for the purpose of correcting its acescency when spoiled, but chiefly by accident, in consequence of the metal being used for various purposes in the construction of the cider-house apparatus. The substance of his researches is,—that a disease in all respects the same with the lead colic was in his time so prevalent in Devonshire as to have supplied 289 cases to the Exeter Hospital in five years, and 80 to the Bath Infirmary in a single season (1766); while, on the contrary, it was little, if at all, known in the adjoining counties of Gloucester, Worcester, and Hereford, although cider is there an equally common drink among all ranks:—that in the latter counties lead was seldom or never used in constructing the apparatus of the cider-houses, while in Devonshire it was used sometimes for lining the presses, but more commonly for fastening the iron cramps, and filling up the stone joinings of the grinding troughs, and for conveying the liquor from vessel to vessel:—that lead did not exist in the
