ision or
temporary blindness. Such a girl passes into what appears to her
friends and medical adviser as ordinary hysteria. This gradually
deepens without warning, until she is suddenly seized with a
convulsion, beginning in one half of the face, then involving the arm,
next the leg of the same side of the body, until the convulsion,
violent and purely epileptic form in character, becomes universal.
This is attended by loss of consciousness, out of which she passes
into a series of convulsions, gradually increasing in severity, in one
of which she dies--or consciousness, partial or perfect, is regained,
either, it may be, for a few minutes, a few hours, or days, during
which violent headache is complained of, or she is delirious and
excited, as in acute mania, or dull and sullen as in melancholia, and
requires to be roused, when she is found wandering, and her speech is
somewhat imperfect. Without further warning, save that the pulse,
which has become soft, with nearly the normal number of beats, all at
once becomes low and hard; she is suddenly seized with another
convulsion, in which she dies, or passes into a state of coma from
which she never rallies. In another case the convulsions will
gradually subside, the headache disappears and the patient recovers,
only to find that she has completely lost her eyesight, a loss that
may be temporary or permanent.

And here are a few specific cases of white-lead poisoning:-

Charlotte Rafferty, a fine, well-grown young woman with a splendid
constitution--who had never had a day's illness in her life--became a
white-lead worker. Convulsions seized her at the foot of the ladder
in the works. Dr. Oliver examined her, found the blue line along her
gums, which shows that the system is under the influence of the lead.
He knew that the convulsions would shortly return. They did so, and
she died.

Mary Ann Toler--a girl of seventeen, who had never had a fit in her
life--three times became ill, and had to leave off work in the
factory. Before she was nineteen she showed symptoms of lead
poisoning--had fits, frothed at the mouth, and died.

Mary A., an unusually vigorous woman, was able to work in the lead
factory for _twenty years_, having colic once only during that time.
Her eight children all died in early infancy from convulsions. One
morning, whilst brushing her