The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-01 00:00:00

TO PREVENT POISONING BY LEAD PIPES.

Few persons have become the occupants of a new house
without some serious charge against the builder, on the
score of drains; the architect, as to the sanitary or other
mal-arrangements of the premises ; or, failing to trace to
either of these personages the cause of some sickness that
has seized them, they decry the constitution; or, if some
sage friend has been consulted, and finds the situation
favourable as to the four winds, the substratum is referred
to ; and then, if clay be the obnoxious foundation, even the
pulling down of the house is pronounced useless, as giving
no remedy against existing evil, which has been attributed
to so many imaginable causes.

Of all the departments, the plumber's is the least sus-
pected. He goes scot free: for if there be an abundance
of water, what blame can attach to him ? We do not say
that blame as yet does attach to him, but we confidently
assert that the cause of the evil is often found in his depart-
ment. That metal which is 5) pliant under his hands, and
can be so easily moulded to his will—with its bright clear
face, that seems as if it would throw back with indignation
any charge of poisoning, is the culprit after whom the
whole house has been in search. In time the hunters aro
worn out in the chase; and having passed the worst mat-
ters begin to mend ; not so much from acclimatisation, as
the victims suppose, but from the pipes having changed
their faces from a laden hue to one more white; not, in-
deed, paled from sorrow at the mischief they have done, but
from falling in with some companion, who has tarried, and
in whose society the metal is so engrossed, as to cease to
exercise a poisonous and deleterious influence over our own.
To those who have not been able to follow our analogy's
let us sum up in clearer words.
Lead is soluble in pure water. A solution of lead is highly
poisonous. There are cases in which pure water, drawn
through leaden pipes or from leaden cisterns, has carried et
sufficiency of lead in solution to poison a whole family.
But a plea of exemption may arise from those who have
not pure water. To such we would reply—lmpure water
coats the lead, in process of time, with the white film
of a carbonate of the metal, which is insoluble, with ex-
ceptions ; one being the presence of water containing car-
bonic acid. Such water, in passing through the carbonate
of lead, takes up an equivalent of the same, which equiva-
lent may be sufficient to cause distinguishable colic, or set
up a non-traceable source of indisposition through a whole
family. We now approach the termination of our summary
by answering a query that may be put by some sceptics.
How is it, after all, some lead pipes do not poison water?
It arises from the fact that old ago has wrought a change for
the better in their disposition ; for when water impregnated
with sulphur salts has for a long time passed through leaden
pipes, or has long acted on leaden cisterns, the lead becomes
coated with a sulphate or a sulphide ; and sulphide of lead,
being perfectly insoluble in pure water, and equally 50 'lt
water not too excessively charged with foreign matters to
he potable, renders the leaden vehicle perfectly harraors
and thus perfects it for the duties which in all other respects
tag
it performs in such a utilitarian manner. But
w° content
moral to append to our subject. Are wo to
wait
or what
to be poisoned until our pipes become transmuted,
easily at-
tainablearo we to do ? The remedy is said now
f cost
to I:
chemist of
tcut:belel fromn need
ea the
without waiting. Dr. Schwarz,
iss'isueMtoothhriogubsglsy
Breslau, has made a discovery that
wcahuni
that by pas-
singesteemed in a sanitary point of view,
caiend
.te chango
a hot solution of the sulphide of Po
leaden pipes, the interior face is transmuted
minutes, at a
me-
tallic state to that of a sulphide in a
ecri,
too insignificant to mention.
14 ttill'sfactorily shoes of come
change of our water conduit be:
years),(and
we have endeavoured to do
proposed is based on equally "
w the sulphid scientific truths ;
thise...knB
if water in the mines of galena,
t let us by all of the noxious
metal, be drunk with impunity, y
and means see that
for the future, at any rate, ei lade es and cisterns be no
pport the character
longer silent poisonersefuyi y
I deserved et uoeful auxiliaries
they have hitherto no,
,_ii, life. deserved,
set
the requiremen_t_i_32l

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ternal blemishes succumb to their power. These reme-
dies, so applicable for the relief of the commonest com-
plaints, are no less adequate to deal safely with the most
formidable and dangerous diseases which can afflict man-
kind,

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