2. _The lead is dissolved in wine._ For the detection of this dangerous fraud, the reagent invented by _Dr. Hahnemann_ affords a ready and convenient test. It consists of water saturated with sulphuretted hydrogen gas, and acidulated with muriatic acid;[392] this latter ingredient is added for the purpose of preventing the precipitation of any iron, which the wine might accidentally contain. This liquor will, if added in the proportion of one part to two of wine, produce with the smallest quantity of lead, a dark coloured, or black precipitate; which, if collected, dried, and fused before the blow-pipe on a piece of charcoal, will yield a globule of metallic lead. Or we may modify the experiment by passing a current of sulphuretted hydrogen gas through the wine, having previously acidulated it with muriatic acid, to prevent the precipitation of the iron. A farther proof of the presence of lead in wines is the occurrence of a precipitate, on adding a solution of the sulphate of soda. The most satisfactory proof, however, is derived by distilling off the alcohol, and calcining the residuum with charcoal, in order to obtain the metallic lead. The quantity of lead which has been detected in sophisticated wine, may be estimated at forty grains of the metal in every fifty gallons,[393] but this will of course be liable to vary with the degree of acidity it was intended to correct. 3. _The lead is dissolved in oils._ In this case the lead may be detected by shaking, in a stopped phial, one part of the suspected oil, with two or three parts of water, impregnated with _sulphuretted hydrogen_. This test will announce the presence of the deleterious metal, by occasioning a dark brown, or black colour. 4. _The lead is mixed with alimentary matter._ _M. Orfila_ has furnished us with the following directions for assaying the matter vomited, or that which may be found in the digestive canal, after death. “After having expressed the fluid portion through a piece of fine linen, it must be assayed by the _tests_, which have been already enumerated as being capable of detecting the salts of lead; and if the precipitates obtained are of a nature to induce a belief, that the fluid contains some preparation of this kind, it must be evaporated to dryness, and calcined with charcoal in a crucible; when, at the expiration of three quarters of an hour, metallic lead will be obtained. If all the experiments made on the fluid portion of the matter vomited, for the discovery of this poison, should be fruitless, the whole of the solid portions, previously dried, should then be calcined with potass and charcoal, by which means metallic lead will be obtained.” VEGETABLE POISONS.