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knew that, unlike many modern
environmental problems, lead presented
dangers that had been well appreciated
from antiquity. It had been well known as
a poison in the Egyptian empire. It was
linked to the fall of Rome since at least
1909,[i] but it was
commonly suspected since at least the
mid-19th century. In 1857, Scientific
American noted:
It is remarkable that this metal (lead),
when dissolved in an acid, has the
property of imparting a saccharine taste
to the fluid. Thus the common acetate of
lead is always called ‘sugar of
lead.’ It was perhaps on this
account that the Greeks and Romans used
sheet lead to neutralize the acidity of
bad wine -- a practice which now is
happily not in use since it has been
found that all combinations of lead are
decidedly poisonous.[ii]
Along with wine,
other sources of lead poisoning in
ancient Rome included piping, cookware,
cups and plates. But the use of grape
sweeteners made in lead vessels probably
caused the most damage. Since the Romans
did not have sugar, they frequently
boiled down grape pulp (or
“must”) and used large amounts
as a condiment to sweeten their food.
They called the pulp “sapa”
or “difrutum.” According
to lead historian and toxicologist Jerome
Niragu: “One teaspoonful of
sapa per day could cause chronic lead
poisoning, and countless Romans would
have consumed more than this dosage from
their foods and drinks. ... The Roman
fondness for sweet and sour flavors is
well known, and the cooks made common use
of the cheap ... sapa in their sauces and
seasonings to assuage the appetites of
their patrons.” [iii] Thus, the Romans
deliberately consumed large quantities of
lead.
The problem was not
simply a few lead pipes in the aquaduct.
The sterility and high infant mortality
rates experienced by the ruling class
during the Empire period, as well as
reports of rapid increase of cases of
gout where the symptoms directly mirror
chronic lead poisoning, were probably
results of eating foods sweetened
with "sugar" of lead.[iv]
During the Middle
Ages, sceptics who did not believe in
“spirits” were frequently
referred to the lead mines to see for
themselves the way the miners behaved.
Early works on tradesmen's diseases
usually note, as did Bernardo Ramazzini
in 1700, that: "The skin [of lead
workers] is apt to bear the same color of
the metal ... Demons and ghosts are often
found to disturb the miners."[v] For over two
millennia, overexposure to lead was known
to cause hallucinations and severe mental
problems.
Perhaps the first
early modern concern about lead poisoning
as a public health problem is documented
in the 18th century, when a British
physician named George Baker became
curious about the “Devonshire
colic.” Each autumn, it seemed,
there was an infestation of colic that
tended to be more severe with the age of
the patient. In 1767, Baker examined
conditions in Devonshire and traced the
colic back to apple cider made by presses
lined with lead. He also noted that no
similar colic attended the apple harvest
in the cider drinking counties of
Hereford, Gloucester and Worcester. The
presses there had wooden sides without
the lead linings. Baker’s
paper to the Royal College of Physicians
also showed that Devonshire cider itself
contained lead. Rather than the praise
that might have been expected, Baker was
condemned by the clergy, by mill owners
and even by fellow doctors. [vi]
Benjamin Franklin
was also concerned about lead poisoning.
In 1724, when Franklin worked as
printer’s apprentice, he observed
that the practice of heating lead type
while cleaning off ink seemed connected
to what was called “the
dangles,” an extremely
debilitating paralysis of the hands that
“dangled” from the wrists for
the rest of the worker's life. In
1745, Franklin also published a paper on
the “dry gripes,” or stomach
cramps -- an epidemic that plagued
America that he traced to drinking rum
distilled in vessels with lead coils and
other parts.
Franklin and Baker
corresponded on scientific matters, and
in 1768, Baker said his suspicions that
lead might be cause of Devonshire colic
“had been greatly confirmed by the
authority of Dr. Franklin of
Philadelphia.” Also around
that time, Franklin obtained a list of
patients in La Charite Hospital in Paris
who had been hospitalized for symptoms
that would today be diagnosed as lead
poisoning and showed that the patients
were involved in occupations that exposed
them to lead.[vii] In 1786, he
wrote a long letter to a friend following
a conversation on the effects of lead. He
concluded: “The Opinion of the
mischievous Effect from Lead is at least
above Sixty Years old, and you will
observe with Concern how long a useful
Truth may be known and exist before it is
generally receiv’d and
practic’d on.” [viii]
In the
United States at the turn of the 20th
century, concerns about worker health
seemed to carry a flavor of
“sentimentality if not
socialism.” Problems like paralysis
of the hands among workers in the lead
trade were usually attributed to drinking
or to a wife's cooking.[ix] It was
difficult even to understand the scope of
the problem -- no law forced
industries to admit researchers to
conduct their studies. Many did so only
after a considerable amount of persuasion
and assurances that the results of a
study would not be reported individually,
but rather about an industry in general.
[i] R. Kobert,
In Beitrage aus der Geschichte der
Chemie, ed., P. Diergart, pp. 103-119;
1909.; also see S. Gilfillan,
"Roman Culture and Dysgenic Lead
Poisoning," Mankind Quarterly,
5, 3-20, Jan-Mar, 1965. // J. Occup.
Med., 7:53-60. Both citations from Nriagu,
Lead and Lead Poisoning, p. 323.
[ii] "Sugar of
Lead," Scientific American,
Aug. 29, 1857, p. 403.
[iii] Nriagu, Lead
and Lead Poisoning, p. 332.
[iv] Niragu also notes
that studies of Roman bones show from two
to five parts per million of lead, with
increasing amounts in bones of people who
died at an older age. Pre-technical
cultures which did not use lead, such as
the Inca of Peru, show a small fraction
of this amount of lead exposure at all
ages. Moreover, the bimodal distribution
of high lead content in unclassified
Roman bones --which has been used to
argue against the theory of lead as a
factor in the fall of the Roman empire --
may acurately reflect Roman social
structure, with the aristocratic group
(high lead) able to afford plenty of lead
sweetened wine and “sapa” and
the lower class unable to afford it.
[v] Bernardo
Ramazzini, "A Treatise on the
Diseases of Tradesmen," circa 1700,
cited in an unpublished paper by Lewis R.
Thompson, "Knowledge of Industrial
Hygiene in the Early Days of
History," National Institutes
of Health, RG 443 Box 195, National
Archives, Washington, D.C.
[vi] Marjorie Smith,
“Lead in History,” eds.
Richard Lansdown and William Yule, Lead
Toxicity: History and Environmental
Impact, (Baltimore, Md.: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1986) p. 20.
[vii] Ibid.
[viii] Ibid. p. 21. Also
see C.P McCord, “Lead and Lead
Poisoning in Early America: Benjamin
Franklin and Lead Poisoning,” Ind.
Med. Surg. 22, 393-9, cited in Smith,
"Lead in History," p. 21.
[ix] Alice Hamilton,
“Nineteen Years in the Dangerous
Trades,” Harpers, Oct 1929,
pp. 580-591. This is not quite
so far fetched as it might seem -- lead
poisoning can come from improperly
distilled spirits or from kitchen pots
and pans made of lead. However, the
problems of workers in the lead trade
were often casually dismissed with these
remote possibilities.
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