the _Colica Pictonum_, after having used, as their common drink, a small white wine that has been adulterated with lead. Nor has the English vintner been less regardless of the health of his employer. In a popular work on wine making by _Graham_,[372] which has gone through six editions, and may therefore be supposed to have done some mischief, we find under the article of _vintner’s secrets_, the following receipts.— “_To hinder wine from turning_, “Put a pound of melted lead, in fair water, into a cask, pretty warm, and stop it close.” “_To soften green wine_, “Put in a little vinegar, wherein litharge has been well steeped, and boil some honey to draw out the wax. Strain it through a cloth, and put a quart of it into a tierce: and this will mend it, in summer especially.” We have already alluded to the presence of lead[373] in the _new_ rum of the West Indies, as the cause of the disease known in that country by the name of the _dry belly-ache_; it remains for us to state that the excise officers frequently avail themselves of the peculiar power of the _sub-acetate of lead_ to precipitate colouring matter, in order to remove from seized Holland gin, the colour which it obtains by being long kept in the tubs in which it is smuggled over. A practice which it is said renders the gin liable to gripe. According to the important experiments of _Proust_,[374] it appears, that if lead be associated with tin, it will be incapable of furnishing to acids any saturnine impregnation. The following are the interesting conclusions at which this philosopher has arrived, viz. “That the _tinning_, which contains even so large a proportion as an equal part of lead, cannot be dangerous; since it is sufficient that the lead should be combined with tin, in order to prevent it from being dissolved, either in lemon juice, or vinegar, the two acids most to be feared. The tin, being more oxidable than the lead, dissolves exclusively in these acids, and prevents the second from being attacked. _The lead cannot appropriate to itself an atom of oxygen, but the tin would carry it off in an instant._” SUGAR OF LEAD—_Saccharum Saturni_—_Cerussa Acetata_—_Plumbi Super-acetas_. This salt of lead, to whose presence the numerous accidental maladies above enumerated are to be chiefly attributed, occurs in commerce in the form of irregular masses resembling lumps of sugar, being an aggregation of acicular four-sided prisms terminated by dihedral summits; its taste is sweet and astringent. It is soluble in 25 parts of water, hot, or cold; when common spring water, however, is employed for such a purpose, a white precipitate occurs from the presence of a certain proportion of _sulphates_ and _carbonates_.