B. FRANKLIN.
FOOTNOTE:
[41] This paper will be found in a subsequent part of the present volume. Editor.
TO BENJAMIN VAUGHAN, ESQ.
[On the Effects of Lead upon the human Constitution.][42]
Philadelphia, July 31, 1786.
DEAR FRIEND,
I recollect that when I had last the pleasure of seeing you at Southampton, now a twelvemonth since, we had some conversation on the bad effects of lead taken inwardly; and that at your request I promised to send you in writing a particular account of several facts I then mentioned to you, of which you thought some good use might be made. I now sit down to fulfil that promise.
The first thing I remember of this kind was a general discourse in Boston when I was a boy, of a complaint from North Carolina against New-England rum, that it poisoned their people, giving them the dry-belly-ach, with a loss of the use of their limbs. The distilleries being examined on the occasion, it was found, that several of them used leaden still-heads and worms, and the physicians were of opinion, that the mischief was occasioned by that use of lead. The legislature of Massachussetts thereupon passed an act, prohibiting, under severe penalties, the use of such still-heads and worms hereafter.