The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1877-05-05
Cur 0lio.
Poisonous Silk Dresses.

In purchasing silk, many require that
the material shall possess both weight and
stiffness, these qualities adding to its rich
appearance and allowing it to be draped
more gracefully. Heavy silk is also com
monty believed TO be Of better manufac-
ture and to wear better, as the extra weight
is supposed to be due to thicker and
closer fabric. While all heavy silks are
not necessarily weighted, large proper
tion Of them are.
The weighing of black silks with a
compound Of tannic acid aud oxide ofiron,
far exceeds in quantity what is really need
full for the production of black color, has
now been known for considerable time,
and has been carried so far as to deprive
the material of its non-conducting power
for heat and electricity, greatly to impair
its strength and durability, and even to
render it liable to spontaneous combustion.
Consumers, however, till lately "laid the
fattering junction to their souls" that white
and light-colored silks must be genuine.
Alas the depraved ingenuity of the age
has introduced sophistication in this de-
partment also, and it is possible to buy
white silks-white goods, rather--consist-
ing Of about one-third to one-half the gen
uine product Of the silkworm, the remain
der being made up with oxide or carbonate
of lead. This stratagem is not merely a
fraud upon the purchaser--who asks and
pays for one thing, and receives another
very inferior in its properties--but it is a
direct attack upon public health, and 1--WE
learn from the Chemical Reuiep) in that
capacity has already brought forth evil
fruits. Persons who are continually hand.
ling such weighted silks are liable to lead
poisoning. Still greater is the risk for
milliners and dressmakers who sew with
silk, and who are in the habit of biting of
the end of the thread, or of putting It in
the mouth to make it the better enter the
eye Of the needle. A minute quantity of
lead is taken into the system each time;
it remains and accumulates, and, at last,
collie, palsy, and other alarming symptoms
make their appearance. These are soon
traced to lead poisoning, but not one med
ical man in hundred will suspect how the
lead is introduced into the patients sys-
TEN. He will blame water, wine vinegar,
food cooked in leaden vessels, etc. In the
last guess he may often be right, for the
tin with which saucepaus are "tinned" is
no longer tin, but an alloy containing a
large proportion Of lead. The so-called
tins in which meat, butter, fruits, etc., are
now imported and sold are also no longer
"tins, save in "Pickwickian sense. +" but
"leads."
But, to return, so long as the silk is not
recognized as the source of the lead, the
patient will go on using it, aud recovery
will therefore be impossible. This, it must
be understood, is no mere matter of con
lecture or probability, but of actual fact.
Poisoning cases of the kind described have
already occurred, aud will certainly become
more and more frequent if the evil prae
tice is allowed to continue.
The detection of lead is not difficult,
If piece of the silk, or little of the
thread or yarn suspected of being weighted
with lead, is moistened with pure water
and then exposed to sulphuretted hydrogen
(ns obtained by putting little sulphuret
of iron in cup and pouring dilute sulphu.
ric acid upon it, if lead is present it will
change color aud rapidly thicken. Ladies
applying this simple test are, however,
cautioned that if they have been made
artifcially beautiful for ever" with pow
ders and enamels, their faces may possibly
change color as rapidly as the weighted
silk.