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Lead Poisoning

By 1885 a remarkable contrast to that in the navies of England, Germany, and the United States, in which lead-poisoning has never occurred on a large scale, was afforded by the French navy, in which "colique seche" played an important part since the time when steamships were introduced, having gone on increasing in proportion as these displaced sailing ships in the fleet. The disease first began to occur more frequently on board French men-of-war subsequent to the year 1840. Many observers decidedly refused to admit the saturnine character of the disease, and either adopted Segond's view of a neurosis of the sympathetic brought on by chill, or they have pronounced for a miasmatic origin of the malady, or oven for its malarial nature.

Lead was used in French men-of-war with steam power, and certain applications of it afforded quite special opportunities for lead-poisoning. In the construction and equipment of a French, war-steamer of ninety guns, there were used, according to official returns, no fewer than 13,000 kilograms of regulation lead, partly in the form of pipes for conveying water, partly as receptacles, partly as plates protect the ship's sides within, and partly as deck fasteners, the superficial area of this mass of metal amounting to wards of 80 square metres (or about 100 square yards). Add to that a large quantity of oxide of lead for the making of putty and paint.

But most important of all was the fact that, since 1840 or since the time when the malady began to bo more prevalent, the distilling apparatus supplied to the ships has been so ill designed as to have the distilled water (which is known to have a strong affinity for lead) conveyed away in leaden pipes. Another ready source of poisoning has been discovered in the so-called "charniers," or largo wooden tanks for holding drinking-water, provided round their edges with mouth-pieces communicating with siphon-tubes, through which the sailors and others of the ship's company imbibe he water. These mouth-pieces are mostly made of glass; ; on many of the ships the tubes themselves are made of ead, and that construction, which is open to suspicion in any case, becomes all the more dangerous from the fact that the water, whenever the ship comes into tropical latitudes, is acidulated to make it more refreshing. Lastly, it should not be omitted that the enamel of the drinking cups and cooking utensils on board French men-of-war usually contains lead ; and after long use they may easily give rise to poisoning.

The greater frequency of the disease on board ships cruising in tropical waters compared with those stationed in temperate latitudes is explained without the slightest difficulty by the circumstance that a higher temperature is very materially conducive to the development of lead-poisoning.