e veneno turgent. Linn. Amaen. Acad.

[115] Quae voluptas tanta ancipitis cibi?--Plin. Nat. Hist. xxii. 23.

[116] Sen. Ep. 95.

_Poisonous Soda Water._

The beverage called soda water is frequently contaminated both with
copper and lead; these metals being largely employed in the construction
of the apparatus for preparing the carbonated water,[117] and the great
excess of carbonic acid which the water contains, particularly enables
it to act strongly on the metallic substances of the apparatus; a truth,
of which the reader will find no difficulty in convincing himself, by
suffering a stream of sulphuretted hydrogen gas to pass through the
water.--See p. 70.

FOOTNOTES:

[117] Some manufacturers have been hence induced to construct the
apparatus for manufacturing soda water wholly either of earthenware or
of glass. Mr. Johnston, of Greek Street, Soho, was the first who pointed
out to the public the absolute necessity of this precaution.

_Food poisoned by Copper Vessels._

Many kinds of viands are frequently impregnated with copper, in
consequence of the employment of cooking utensils made of that metal. By
the use of such vessels in dressing food, we are daily liable to be
poisoned; as almost all acid vegetables, as well as sebaceous or pinguid
substances, employed in culinary preparations, act upon copper, and
dissolve a portion of it; and too many examples are met with of fatal
consequences having ensued from eating food which had been dressed in
copper vessels not well cleaned from the oxide of copper which they had
contracted by being exposed to the action of air and moisture.

The inexcusable negligence of persons who make use of copper vessels has
been productive of mortality, so much more terrible, as they have
exerted their action on a great number of persons at once. The annals of
medicine furnish too many examples in support of this assertion, to
render it necessary to insist more upon it here.

Mr. Thiery, who wrote a thesis on the noxious quality of copper,
observes, that "our food receives its quantity of poison in the kitchen
by the use of copper pans and dishes. The brewer mingles poison in our
beer, by boiling it in copper vessels. The sugar-baker employs copper
pans; the pastry-cook bakes our tarts in copper moulds; the confectioner
uses copper vessels: the oilman boils his pickles in copper or brass
vessels, and verdigris is plentifully formed by the action of the
vinega