Lead poisoning

However, recent research supports the idea that the lead found in the water came from the supply pipes, rather than another source of contamination. It was not unknown for locals to punch holes in the pipes to draw water off, increasing the number of people exposed to the lead.

Romans also consumed lead through the consumption of defrutum, carenum, and sapa, musts made by boiling down fruit in lead cookware. and its relatives were used in ancient Roman cuisine and cosmetics, including as a food preservative. The use of leaden cookware, though popular, was not the general standard and copper cookware was used far more generally. There is also no indication how often was added or in what quantity.

In 1983, environmental chemist Jerome Nriagu argued in a milestone paper that Roman civilization collapsed as a result of lead poisoning. Clair Patterson, the scientist who convinced governments to ban lead from gasoline, enthusiastically endorsed this idea, which nevertheless triggered a volley of publications aimed at refuting it. In 1984, John Scarborough, a pharmacologist and classicist, criticized the conclusions drawn by Nriagu's book as "so full of false evidence, miscitations, typographical errors, and a blatant flippancy regarding primary sources that the reader cannot trust the basic arguments." Although today lead is no longer seen as the prime culprit of Rome's demise, its status in the system of water distribution by lead pipes () still stands as a major public health issue. By measuring Pb isotope compositions of sediments from the Tiber River and the Trajanic Harbor, the present work shows that "tap water" from ancient Rome had 100 times more lead than local spring waters.

A study published in January 2025 concluded that lead pollution peaked during a prosperous period known as the Pax Romana, adding credence to the theory that lead pollution have contributed to the decline of the Roman Empire.

After antiquity, mention of lead poisoning was absent from medical literature until the end of the Middle Ages. In 1656 the German physician Samuel Stockhausen recognized dust and fumes containing lead compounds as the cause of disease, called since ancient Roman times , that were known to afflict miners, smelter workers, potters, and others whose work exposed them to the metal.

The painter Caravaggio might have died of lead poisoning. Bones with high lead levels were recently found in a grave thought likely to be his. Paints used at the time contained high amounts of lead salts. Caravaggio is known to have exhibited violent behavior, a symptom commonly associated with lead poisoning.

In 17th-century Germany, the physician Eberhard Gockel discovered lead-contaminated wine to be the cause of an epidemic of colic.

In the 18th century lead poisoning was fairly frequent on account of the widespread drinking of rum, which was made in stills with a lead component (the "worm"). It was a significant cause of mortality amongst slaves and sailors in the colonial West Indies. Lead poisoning from rum was also noted in Boston. Benjamin Franklin suspected lead to be a risk in 1786. Also in the 18th century, "Devonshire colic" was the name given to the symptoms experienced by people of Devon who drank cider made in presses that were lined with lead.

thumb|Paralysie saturnine diagnostiquée par [[Joseph Jules Dejerine et Augusta Dejerine-Klumpke (Sorbonne Université).]]

With the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, lead poisoning became common in the work setting. William James Furnival (1853–1928), research ceramist of City & Guilds London Institute, appeared before Parliament in 1901 and presented a decade's evidence to convince the nation's leaders to remove lead completely from the British ceramic industry. His 852-page treatise, Leadless Decorative Tiles, Faience, and Mosaic of 1904, published that campaign and provided recipes to promote lead-free ceramics. At the request of the Illinois state government in the US, Alice Hamilton (1869–1970) documented lead toxicity in Illinois industry and in 1911 presented results to the 23rd Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association. Hamilton was a founder of the field of occupational safety and health and published the first edition of her manual, Industrial Toxicology, in 1934, yet in print in revised forms. An important step in the understanding of childhood lead poisoning occurred when toxicity in children from lead paint was recognized in Australia in 1897. Beginning in the 1920s, lead was added to gasoline to improve its combustion; lead from this exhaust persists today in soil and dust in buildings. Blood lead levels worldwide have been declining sharply since the 1980s, when leaded gasoline began to be phased out.

The levels found today in most people are orders of magnitude greater than those of pre-industrial society. Due to reductions of lead in products and the workplace, acute lead poisoning is rare in most countries today, but low-level lead exposure is still common. It was not until the second half of the 20th century that subclinical lead exposure became understood to be a problem. Blood lead levels once considered safe are now considered hazardous, with no known safe threshold.

In the late 1950s through the 1970s Herbert Needleman and Clair Cameron Patterson did research trying to prove lead's toxicity to humans. In the 1980s Needleman was falsely accused of scientific misconduct by lead industry associates.

In 2002 Tommy Thompson, United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, appointed at least two persons with conflicts of interest to the CDC's Lead Advisory Committee.

In 2014, a case by the State of California against several companies decided against Sherwin-Williams, NL Industries, and ConAgra and ordered them to pay $1.15 billion. The disposition of The People v. ConAgra Grocery Products Company et al. in the California 6th Appellate District Court on 14 November 2017 is that:

On 6 December 2017, the petitions for rehearing from NL Industries, Inc., ConAgra Grocery Products Company, and The Sherwin-Williams Company were denied.

in the United States, lead paint in rental housing remains a hazard to children. Both landlords and insurance companies have adopted strategies that limit the chance of recovery for damages due to lead poisoning: insurance companies by excluding coverage for lead poisoning from policies, and landlords by crafting barriers to the collection of any monetary damages compensating plaintiffs for damage.

Other species

Humans are not alone in suffering from lead's effects; plants and animals are also affected by lead toxicity to varying degrees depending on species. and to provide information on the pathophysiology of lead, such as how it is absorbed and distributed in the body.

Farm animals such as cows and horses as well as pet animals are also susceptible to the effects of lead toxicity. When hunters use lead shot, waterfowl such as ducks can ingest the spent pellets later and be poisoned; predators that eat these birds are also at risk. Lead shot-related waterfowl poisonings were first documented in the US in the 1880s. Lead shot has been banned for hunting waterfowl in several countries, including the US in 1991 and Canada in 1997. Other threats to wildlife include lead paint, sediment from lead mines and smelters, and lead weights from fishing lines. Among condors around the Grand Canyon, lead poisoning due to eating lead shot is the most frequently diagnosed cause of death.

Notes

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References

External links

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Peer-reviewed profile that characterizes the toxicology and health effects information, identifies and reviews the key literature that describes lead's toxicological properties.

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Lead poisoning

Other species

See also

Notes

Further reading

External links