There is, says _Dr. Darwin_, a bad custom in almost all families, and public houses, of washing out their wine bottles by putting a handful of shot corns into them, and by shaking them about forcibly to detach the super-tartrate of potass from their sides; that such a practice may occasionally give origin to serious consequences, will become evident by the relation of the following case.[365] “A gentleman who had never in his life experienced a day’s illness, and who was constantly in the habit of drinking half a bottle of Madeira after his dinner, was taken ill three hours after dinner with a serious pain in the stomach and violent colic, which gradually yielded within twelve hours to the remedies prescribed by his medical attendant. The day following he drank the remainder of the same bottle of wine which was left the preceding day, and within two hours afterwards he was again seized with the most violent pains, head-ache, shiverings, and great pain over the whole body. His apothecary becoming suspicious that the wine he had drunk might be the cause of the disease, ordered the bottle, from which it had been decanted, to be brought to him, with a view that he might examine the dregs, if any were left. The bottle happening to slip out of the hand of the servant, disclosed a row of shot, wedged forcibly into the angular bent-up circumference of it. On examining the beads of shot, they crumbled into dust, the outer crust (defended by a coat of black lead with which the shot is glazed) being alone left unacted on, whilst the remainder of the metal was dissolved. The wine, therefore, had become contaminated with _lead_, and perhaps _arsenic_, for in order to form shot the former metal is alloyed with the latter.”[366]