But we have, hitherto, only directed the reader’s attention to the different sources from which wine, and acescent liquors, may _accidentally_ derive saturnine impregnation. We have now to state that such liquors have, in different ages and countries, been fraudulently adulterated with lead. It appears to have been early discovered, that wines which have become morbidly acescent may be corrected by the addition of lead; whence, in those countries where Rhenish, Moselle, and other similar wines are drunk, the saturnine colic has been endemic. The celebrated colic which raged in the province of _Poitou_, towards the end of the sixteenth, and in the beginning of the seventeenth century, was evidently the effect of such adulteration.[367] We find that, in the year 1487, there was a _Recessus Imperii_ promulgated at Rotenberg; and, in the year 1498, at Friberg; which was enacted, in the year 1500, at Tubingen; and, in the year 1508, at Frankfort; and, in the year 1577, in the same place. By which decrees it was made a capital crime to adulterate wines with _litharge_, or to use _bismuth_ in the fumigation of them; it having been, at several periods, represented to the Emperors, that great mischief had accrued from such adulterations; and that they had been the cause of insuperable and mortal diseases. It should seem, that these laws were not carried into strict execution; and, indeed, that in the latter end of the seventeenth century, it was hardly known in Germany that such laws existed. In consequence of which, an epidemic colic arose, which was at length traced to the effects of lead in the wines.[368] A representation of this fact having been made to the _Duke of Wirtemberg_, it was ordained a capital crime to mix litharge with wine, or even to sell it in the shops, by a decree, bearing date March 10, 1696. But, notwithstanding the severity of this law, we are informed by _Zeller_, that in the year 1705, the same dangerous experiments were repeated in the circle of _Zwaabe_, with a view to correct the acidity of the weaker wines. _Bishop Watson_[369] informs us that, in the year 1750, the _Farmers general_ in France being astonished at the great quantities _de vin gaté_ which were brought into Paris, in order to be made into vinegar, redoubled their researches to find out the cause of the great increase in that article; for nearly thirty thousand hogsheads had been annually brought in for a few years preceding the year 1750, whereas the quantity annually brought in forty years before, did not exceed 1200 hogsheads. They discovered that several wine merchants, assuming the name of vinegar merchants, bought these sour wines, and afterwards, by means of litharge, rendered them potable, and sold them as genuine wines.[370] _Dr. Warren_[371] has related the cases of thirty-two persons in the _Duke of Newcastle’s_ family, who were residing in Hanover in June, 1752, and were seized with