Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Lectures on the theory and practice of physic (Volume 1). Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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![limbs. He inquired minutely into the history of the case, and made a most scrutinizing examination, but from all he could see or learn, there was not the slightest ground to suspect disease of the brain or spinal cord. There had never been any symptoms of colic. He was puzzled with the case, and tried one thing after another without benefit. At length he found out that the child's father was a painter by trade, and this led him to suspect that the symptoms might have some connection with the poison of lead. He inquired ; and was told by the mother that a quantity of white lead had latterly been kept in the room, and that ii was impossible to keep the child from it. He instantly had the paint removed, a free current of air ad- mitted into the room, and by the use of purgatives, assisted by sti- mulating frictions, the child recovered. Symptoms. — The following is the order of symptoms generally observed in this disease.* First, we have the precursory, denoted by pain and sensation of weight about the epigastrium; a weak, small pulse ; general languor and weakness of the muscular system; want ofappetite; cold, clammy skin ; a tremulous and coated tongue. At this period there is sometimes diarrhoea. Then comes some exciting cause, exposure to cold or wet, excess in eating ordrinking, and the dis- * [Prior to the development of the more decided forms of disease, there are effects produced on the system by lead, constituting what may be called a saturnine diathesis. The principal marks by which this state may be recognised are, according to M. Tanquere), who, in his Traite des Maladies de Plomb ou Saturnines, has entered largely into the subject, are a peculiar bluish or bluish-gray tinge of the gums, which sometimes extends over the mucous membrane of the mouth generally, the teeth at the same time becomingdiscoloured and affected with caries; a sweetish, styptic, astringent taste in the mouth, with a peculiar fetor of the breath, sallowness of the skin, and a dull yellow tinge of the conjunctiva ; general emaciation, and a small, soft, com- pressible pulse, and, in some rare cases, a considerable reduction in the number of its beats: of these symptoms, the discoloration of the gums and teeth is the most frequent and the most characteristic. It appears to be owing to the deposition of a very minute film of sulphuret of lead on the mucous surface and on the enamel of the teeth, the former becoming of a bluish slate-gray colour, as before mentioned ; the latter of a brown colour, which is deepest at the neck of the tooth, or the part in immediate contact with the gum. The importance of a knowledge of and attention to these premoni- tory symptoms is shown by a statement of M. Tanquerel, from which it appears that, of 1217 cases of this affection coming under notice, 1195 had been previously affected with one or more of the symptoms specified, a timely attention to which, on the part of the person him- self, with temporary cessation from work, has in many instances been successful in averting the threatened attack. — {British and Foreign Medical Renew, Oct. 1840.) Dr. Burton lays stress on a blue hue along the edge of the gums, bordering the teeth, as a dia- gnostic sign of lead poisoning. — B.] vol. i.—29](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21156955_0347.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
