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when admittedly introduced for the sake of colour. The Lancet did
good work in this direction many years since, and it is owing to
the labours of Dr. Hassall and others that Pickles and Preserves
are now generally sold without the green colouring matter communicated
by copper salts.
The effects of copper upon the system are cumulative like those
of lead, and a very interesting illustration of the influence of the
latter is furnished by the following case. A man was brought into
a London Hospital afflicted with some of the worst symptoms of
lead-paralysis. For some time the physician in attendance could
not in any way account for the man's illness, as he was not connected
with painters' or any other work in which lead or lead-salts
Were employed. At length it oozed out that the man, in going to
his daily work, stopped every morning early at the same publichouse,
and had a draught of "dog's-nose," a mixture of ale and
gin. The latter, having been in the pipes all night, was just sufficiently
poisoned by a minute trace of lead, as, in time, by its
cumulative effects, to produce paralysis. The moral is obvious.
It shows too, among other things, that the fittings of a publichouse
are not unimportant, and that the mention of traces of lead
in a gin or rum should not be disregarded.
"With regard to Spirits, I have examined five specimens of Gins,
and three of Whiskeys. I have not met with any of the adulterations
which were said to be so common. There is often an
admixture of water which I should only condemn when the
amount of proof spirit was supposed to be a fixed quantity. How
great the variations in alcohol, reckoned as proof spirit, may be,
the following statements will prove:—
No. 61 Whiskey 77.52 per cent.
No. 59 „ 71.39 „
No. 3 „ 61.50 „
No. 62 Gin 62.05 „
No. 2 „ 60.09
No. 97 „ 57.59 „
No. 96 „ 52.49 „
No. 60 „ 51.91 „