Anne Ford it was considered controversial for a woman to play the "masculine" viola da gamba, referred to at the time as the "viol di gambo". Ford gave a performance at Spring Gardens in 1761, "English airs". accompanying herself on the musical glasses. She also wrote a published work, "Instructions for Playing on the Musical Glasses". The instrument was comparable to the glass harp of Richard Pockrich consisting of individual glass goblets tuned with water, and preceded the 1761 mechanized armonica (Glass harmonica) invention of Benjamin Franklin and played by Marianne Davies. Ford's accomplishments risked being complicated by an infatuated lover, the
Glass harmonica because musical fashions were changing. A modern version of the "purported dangers" claims that players suffered lead poisoning because armonicas were made of lead glass. However, there is no known scientific basis for the theory that merely touching lead glass can cause lead poisoning. Lead poisoning was common in the 18th and early 19th centuries for both armonica players and non-players alike; doctors prescribed lead compounds for a long list of ailments, and lead or lead oxide was used as a food preservative and in cookware and eating utensils. Trace amounts of lead that armonica players in Franklin's day received