One has laughed at the whimsical description of the cheats in Humphrey Clinker, but it is really impossible to laugh at Mr. Accum’s exposition. It is too serious for a joke to see that in almost every thing which we eat or drink, we are condemned to swallow swindling, if not poison—that all the items of metropolitan, and many of country consumption, are deteriorated, deprived of nutritious properties, or rendered obnoxious to humanity by the vile arts and merciless sophistications of their sellers. So general seems the corruption, and so fatal the tendency of most of the corrupting materials, that we can no longer wonder at the prevalence of painful disorders, and the briefness of existence (on an average) in spite of the great increase of medical knowledge, and the amazing improvement in the healing science, which distinguish our era. No skill can prevent the effects of daily poisoning; and no man can prolong his life beyond a short standard, where every meal ought to have its counteracting medicine. Mr. Accum acts the part of Dionysius with us; only the horse-hair by which he suspends the sword over our heads allows the point gradually to enter the flesh, and we do not escape, like Damocles, with the simple fright: yet it is but justice to acknowledge, that in almost every case he furnishes us with tests whereby we can ascertain the nature of our danger; and no man could do more towards enabling us to mitigate or escape from it. Advising our readers to abstain from perusing the annexed synopsis till after they have dined, that they may have one more meal in comfort ere they die, we proceed to the various heads under which the author ranges his dread array. Devoted to disease by baker, brewer, grocer, &c. the physician is called to our assistance; but here again the pernicious system of fraud, as it has given the blow, steps in to defeat the remedy. It is so horribly pleasant to reflect how we are in this way be-swindled, be-trayed, be-drugged, and be-devilled, that we are almost angry with Mr. Accum for the great service he has done the community by opening our eyes, at the risk of shutting our mouths for ever. His account of water is so fearful, that we see there is no wisdom in the well; and if we then fly to wine, we find, from his analysis, that there is no truth in that liquid: bread turns out to be a crutch to help us onward to the grave, instead of the staff of life; in porter there is no support, in cordials no consolation; in almost every thing poison, and in scarcely any medicine, cure. The work contains a great many excellent observations on the various sorts of water, and the modes of conveying and preserving them for use: it appears generally that leaden pipes and cisterns, and copper vessels are highly dangerous.