Lead pipe, its danger : a rejoinder to the reply of Prof. Horsford to the argument in the appendix to Tanquerel / by Samuel L. Dana.

  • Dana, Samuel Luther, 1795-1868.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lead pipe, its danger : a rejoinder to the reply of Prof. Horsford to the argument in the appendix to Tanquerel / by Samuel L. Dana. 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.)

    3/16
    ITS DANGER. TO PROFESSOR HORSFORD. Sir : — In your final Report to the Water Com- missioners of the City of Boston, {City Document, No. 32, Appendix, p. 39,) you state that the argument against the employment of leaden service pipes for Cochituate water has been presented to the public in a strong light by myself. Certain reasons are then given, which induce you to present the argument in favor of employing lead for the purpose above mentioned — in the form of a reply, if not in the order, yet in general to the substance of the argument above alluded to. I shall find no fault with any order you may please to adopt, but as the argument against was stated and defended in a plain and direct manner, I cannot but regret that you have not given a plain and direct reply in favor of lead pipes. As it is, I beg leave to offer a few remarks on the ten small parcels into which you have divided your Reply. If my ob- servations should assume a somewhat discursive form, it will be because your rambling argument forbids a condensed rejoinder. I. Lead is ahcays present in the tissues and blood of men not only, but. in the tissues and blood of domestic animals. I would remind you that this forms no part of my article on lead pipe. I do not object to your deducing as a principle, that which is so evidently stated in the paper of the Appendix to which you refer, that small amounts of lead may be present in the body without injury to health, but I must insist that you shall state from this same paper, that beyond this small amount, disease and death are the consequence of the increase. That was no small part of the object of the article from which you have deduced your important principle. II. Numerous wells and springs have consumed lead pipe. On this point we agree. You are fortunately in possession of more *' startling facts than any here noticed by myself, and you agree also that v' in consequence of the lead in water derived from supply tubes, there have occurred frequent and frightful cases of illness, and occasional deaths. But concurring as we perfectly do on this point, I can see neither the propriety or force of your stating the principle above in an argu- ment in favor of lead, without attempting to combat or disprove it.