Applying the Test for Lead. -- the sulfide of ammonium may be purchased at a small cost, save for $.25 an ounce, of most dealers and chemicals; and, as its odor is extremely disagreeable, it should be carefully corked until the moment it is used. The experiment should be made upon half a pint of the suspected water; and, if the contamination is supposed to be caused by lead pipes, it is a good plan to test a portion of the liquid which has stood overnight in the conduits. The mode of discriminating the precipitate caused by iron from those due to the dangerous metals, lead and copper, is to let fall a few drop of hydrochloric acid, called also muriatic acid, into the fluid. If the brownish or yellowish brown tent disappears, we may know that innocent iron is the only metallic impurities; whilst if, on the contrary, no change is effected by the addition of the acid, one of the poisonous metals, better copper, is present. No water, however, in which the slightest change is produced by adding the sulfide of ammonium, should be swallowed by man or beast until a rigid investigation by a competent water analyst has proved it to be harmless.

I somehow doubt that sulfide of ammonium costs that amount today.  Its probably either much more expensive or sold in ridiculous bulks at every grocery store, pharmacy and gas station next to the Phentermine in one of those combination aisles that sells just a little bit of everything, but never the thing you really need.

Additional Articles from the Book of Medicine:

• How to Destroy Cockroaches
  
  

  WARNING!  THIS ARTICLE REPRESENTS A HISTORICAL REFERENCE TO THE PRACTICES USED OVER 100 YEARS AGO TO GET RID OF COCKROACHES.  THIS PRACTICE COULD BE DANGEROUS TO YOU, YOUR HOME, YOUR CHILDREN OR PETS OR MORE IF YOU UTILIZE THEM TODAY.  

  THIS INFORMATION IS PROVIDED FOR HISTORICAL RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY!

  How to Destroy Cockroaches.—

  Maybe in this modern age if we allowed more cock roaches to enter our abodes, our appetites would be cubed a bit and weight loss wouldn’t be so much of an issue.

  Take a quarter of a teaspoonful of phosphorous, two level tablespoonfuls of flour, mix and make into paste with well sweetened water. Phosphorous is very inflammable and should not be allowed near fire and being poisonous must not be placed where children and family pets can touch or eat it. Place the paste where the roaches can reach it.

• Duty of the Throat
  
  

  Duty of the Throat.- the muscular bands of the throat now grasp it and pass it down the gullet into the stomach, beyond our control.  Here it comes into contact with the gastric juice, undergoes the churning motion of the stomach, discarded over by the pylorus, thoroughly saturated in mixed before entering into the intestinal tract, where it is subjected to the action of the file, the pancreatic juice and the intestinal fluid each with its special duty to perform.

   

  Again nothing terribly exciting here in this section but the next one will take us into “Nature’s Treasures Opened to Man”.

• Cause for Bright’s Disease
  
  

  Cause for Bright’s Disease. — it has long seemed probable that the increasing prevalence of that terribly fatal malady, "Bright’s disease," especially in cities and large towns, maybe due to the poisonous effects of exceeding minute quantities of lead, dissolved from the lead pipes so generally employed as service conduits, notwithstanding the protective coating, which usually forms so promptly upon them.

  In the year 2008, this paragraph would seem like something rather obvious. But it is remarkable to look back in time and see how people consider the potential for this problem to exist, before science had proven it out. We sometimes forget that our knowledge is built on many many different precursors and actions that were taken before we came to be. Humanity learns its lessons from the people that come before it and the actions that they take. Sometimes they learn those lessons quickly, and sometimes they learned those lessons very slowly, whether they are trying to understand lead poisoning or come up with better egg nog recipes. This is one of the reasons why history is so important for us to study, not only do we get to learn some of the items from the past to avoid making the same mistakes, we get to learn how people in the past recognize the problem and dealt with it so that we can recognize and deal with new problems today.

  Technorati tags: Bright’s Disease, Lead Poisoning History