Note 361 — MINERAL POISONS. (continued 3)

The frequency with which the inhabitants of Madrid, and of a great part of New Castille in Spain, were harrassed with colic, as recorded by M. Thierry, received a satisfactory explanation from the fact of glazed earthenware having been universally used in that country for culinary vessels.

Sir G. Baker in a paper entitled “Further Observations on the Poisons of Lead,” Med. Trans. vol. 2, p. 419, mentions the practice of drinking cyder out of glazed earthen vessels as dangerous. Dr. Watson, junior, saw several instances of the Devonshire colic, during the time of harvest, apparently from this cause. And a similar instance fell under the notice of Dr. Charleston, where six persons became, at one time, paralytic, by drinking cyder, brought to them while at harvest work, in a new earthen pitcher, the inside of which was glazed. That the glazing was dissolved by the liquor appeared not only by the effects which it produced, but from its having given, as these persons informed Dr. Charleston, that astringent sweetish taste to the liquor, by which the solutions of this metal are so peculiarly distinguished.