The medical side of Benjamin Franklin / by William Pepper.

  • William Pepper
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The medical side of Benjamin Franklin / by William Pepper. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    172/202 page 104
    Distribution) by placing it sloping before the Fire. I found this had the additional Advantage, when the Types were not only dry’d but heated, of being comfortable to the Hands working over them in cold weather. I therefore sometimes heated my case when the Types did not want drying. But an old Workman, observing it, advis’d me not to do so, telling me I might lose the use of my Hands by it, as two of our Companions had nearly done, one of whom that us’d to earn his Guinea a Week, could not then make more than ten Shillings, and the other, who had the Dangles, but seven and sixpence. This, with a kind of obscure Pain, that I had sometimes felt, as it were in the Bones of my Hand when working over the Types made very hot, induced me to omit the Practice. But talking afterwards with Mr. James, a Letter-founder in the same Close, and asking him if his People, who work’d over the little Furnaces of melted Metal, were not subject to that Disorder; he made light of any danger from the effluvia, but ascribed it to the Particles of the Metal swallow’d with their Food by slovenly Workmen, who went to their Meals after handling the Metal, without well washing their Fingers, so that some of the metalline Particles were taken off by their Bread and eaten with it. This appeared to have some Reason in it. But the Pain I had experienc’d made me still afraid of those Effluvia. Being in Derbishire at some of the Furnaces for Smelting of Lead Ore, I was told, that the Smoke of those Furnaces was pernicious to the neighboring Grass and other Vegetables; but I do not recollect to have heard anything of the Effect of such Vegetables eaten by Animals. It may be well to make the Enquiry. In America I have often observ’d that on the Roofs of our shingled Houses, where Moss is apt to grow in northen Exposures, if there be any thing on the Roof painted with white Lead, such as Balusters, or Frames of dormant Windows, &c, there is constantly a Streak on the Shingles from such Paint down to the Eaves, on which no Moss will grow, but the wood remains, constantly clean and free from it. We seldom drink RainWater that falls on our Houses; and if we did, perhaps the small quantity of Lead descending from such Paint might, not be sufficient to produce any sensible ill Effect on our Bodies. But I have been told of a Case in Europe, I forgot the Place, where a whole Family was afflicted with what we call the Dry Bellyach, or Colica Pictonum, by drinking RainWater. It was at a Country-Seat, which, being situated too high to
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image