[850] “On Lead Impregnation in Relation to Gout,” by Dyce Duckworth, M.D., St. Barth. Hosp. Reports, vol. xvii., 1881.
Ellenberger and Hofmeister[851] found that, with chronic poisoning of sheep with lead, excretion of hippuric acid ceased, and the output of uric acid was diminished. This may be explained by the formation of glycocol being arrested.
[851] Arch. f. wiss. u. pract. Thierheilk., Bd. x., 1884.
§ 786. There are some facts on record which would seem to countenance the belief that disease, primarily caused by an inorganic body like lead, may be transmitted. M. Paul (e.g.) has related the history of the offspring (thirty-two in number) of seven men, who were suffering from lead-poisoning—eleven were prematurely born and one still-born; of the remaining twenty, eight died in the first year, four in the second, and five in the third year, so that of the whole thirty-two, only three survived three years.
The influence of the poison on pregnant women is, indeed, very deleterious. M. Paul noted that in four women who were habitually exposed to the influence of lead, and had fifteen pregnancies, ten terminated by abortion, two by premature confinement, three went the full term, but one of the three children was born dead, a second only lived twenty-four hours; so that, out of the whole fifteen, one only lived fully. In another observation of M. Paul’s, five women had two natural confinements before being exposed to lead. After exposure, the history of the thirty-six pregnancies of these women is as follows:—there were twenty-six abortions (from two to five months), one premature confinement, two infants born dead, and five born alive, four of whom died in the first year.
Chronic poisoning may be nearly always accounted for by the inhaling of lead dust, or by the actual swallowing of some form of lead; but, if we are to accept the fact narrated by the late Dr. Taylor, viz., that he himself had an attack of lead colic from sitting in a room for a few hours daily, in which there was a large canvas covered with white lead and drying oil, and one or two other similar cases,[852] we must allow that there is some subtle volatile organic compound of lead evolved. In the present state of our knowledge, it seems more reasonable to account for such cases by the suggestion that lead has entered the system by an unsuspected channel.