e broths and soups will
look green and dirty, and taste bitter and poisonous, and will be
spoiled both for the eye and palate, and your credit will be lost; and
as the health, and even the life, of the family depends upon this; the
cook may be sure her employer had rather pay the tin-man's bill than
the doctor's."

The senate of Sweden, in the year 1753, prohibited copper vessels, and
ordered that none but such as were made of iron should be used in their
fleet and armies.

FOOTNOTES:

[118] Johnston's Essay on Poison, p. 102.

[119] Medical Transactions, vol. i. p. 213.

[120] Apicius Redivivus, p. 91.

_Food Poisoned by Leaden Vessels._

Various kinds of food used in domestic economy, are liable to become
impregnated with lead.

The glazing of the common cream-coloured earthen ware, which is composed
of an oxide of lead, readily yields to the action of vinegar and saline
compounds; and therefore jars and pots of this kind of stone ware, are
wholly unfit to contain jellies of fruits, marmalade, and similar
conserves. Pickles should in no case be deposited in cream-coloured
glazed earthenware.

The custom which still prevails in some parts of this country of keeping
milk in leaden vessels for the use of the dairy, is very improper.

"In Lancashire[121] the dairies are furnished with milk-pans made of
lead: and when Mr. Parks expostulated with some individuals on the
danger of this practice, he was told that _leaden_ milk-pans throw up
the cream much better than vessels of any other kind.

"In some parts of the north of England it is customary for the
inn-keepers to prepare mint-salad by bruising and grinding the vegetable
in a large wooden bowl with a _ball of lead_ of twelve or fourteen
pounds weight. In this operation the mint is cut, and portions of the
lead are ground off at every revolution of the ponderous instrument. In
the same county, it is a common practice to have brewing-coppers
constructed with the bottom of copper and the whole sides of lead."

The baking of fruit tarts in cream-coloured earthenware, and the salting
and preserving of meat in leaden pans, are no less objectionable. All
kinds of food which contain free vegetable acids, or saline
preparations, attack utensils covered with a glaze, in the composition
of which lead enters as a component part. The leaden beds of presses for
squeezing the fruit in cyder countries, have produced incalculable
mischief. These consequences n