ancient Romans and Lead poisoning - Heidi

[Guest guest]

Heidi (or anyone else who knows about this),

What period of history was it that the ancient Romans commonly suffered from

lead poisoning? And were there other groups, to anyone's knowledge, who had

excessive exposure to heavy metals in history?

Suze Fisher

Lapdog Design, Inc.

Web Design & Development

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg

Weston A. Price Foundation Chapter Leader, Mid Coast Maine

http://www.westonaprice.org

----------------------------

“The diet-heart idea (the idea that saturated fats and cholesterol cause

heart disease) is the greatest scientific deception of our times.” --

Mann, MD, former Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry at Vanderbilt

University, Tennessee; heart disease researcher.

The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics

<http://www.thincs.org>

----------------------------

>

[Guest guest]

>Heidi (or anyone else who knows about this),

>

>What period of history was it that the ancient Romans commonly suffered from

>lead poisoning? And were there other groups, to anyone's knowledge, who had

>excessive exposure to heavy metals in history?

>

>Suze Fisher

Good question. Certainly during the time of Caligula

http://www.romans-in-britain.org.uk/arl_roman_cooking-pt1.htm

One theory about Roman society and its preference for highly flavoured foods is

that lead poisoning was prevalent among the aristocracy, due mainly to the use

of lead lined pots used for boiling a preservative syrup required by wine

merchants. As the symptoms of this complaint include a metallic taste in the

mouth and loss of appetite, it would follow that a chronic sufferer would seek

to kill this unpleasant taste and stimulate his jaded appetite.

http://www.radford.edu/~wkovarik/hist1/1ancient.html

Pollution is typically found in pre-industrial cities where people burn wood and

work at crafts and industry. " The smoke, the wealth, the noise of Rome... " held

no charms for the Roman poet Horace and many of his contemporaries. As residents

of what had become the largest city in the world, ancient Romans were well aware

of the problem of air pollution. They called it gravioris caeli (heavy heaven)

or infamis aer (infamous air). Odors and runoff from garbage, sewage and

industries such as smelting or tanning also fouled the air and water.

100 AD -- Occupational disease is well known in ancient Rome. Workers in

lead and mercury mines and smelters are known to suffer from the metals,

according to Rome’s famous engineer Vitruvius. While slaves are often used in

the lead and mercury mines, Plutarch recommends that only criminal slaves be

used. It was not just, he said, to expose non-criminals to these conditions.

100 AD - 400 AD – Decline of Roman Empire may have been partly due to lead

poisoning, according to modern hi storian and toxicologist Jerome Nriagu. Romans

used lead acetate ( " sugar of lead " ) to sweeten old wine and turn grape pulp into

a sweet condiment. Usually the acidic wine or pulp was simply left in a vat with

sheets of lead. An aristocrat with a sweet tooth might have eaten as much as a

gram of lead a day. Widespread use of this sweetener would have caused gout,

sterility, insanity and many of the symptoms which were, in fact, present among

the aristocrats. High levels of lead have been found in the bones of

aristocratic Romans. Far more than simply using lead pipes or lead utensils, the

direct consumption of lead-sweetened wine and foods created serious and

widespread lead poisoning among upper-class Romans.

[Guest guest]

Mercury used to be used on the skin of rich ladies to lighten it, and

there's got to be some literature on that. I'm pretty sure there're

abstracts you can pull up in PubMed relating to heavy metal poisoning of

families and entire towns from things like factories and tainted fish in

more recent times.

ancient Romans and Lead poisoning - Heidi

> Heidi (or anyone else who knows about this),

>

> What period of history was it that the ancient Romans commonly suffered

from

> lead poisoning? And were there other groups, to anyone's knowledge, who

had

> excessive exposure to heavy metals in history?

>

> Suze Fisher

> Lapdog Design, Inc.

> Web Design & Development

> http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg

> Weston A. Price Foundation Chapter Leader, Mid Coast Maine

> http://www.westonaprice.org

>

> ----------------------------

> " The diet-heart idea (the idea that saturated fats and cholesterol cause

> heart disease) is the greatest scientific deception of our

times. " --

> Mann, MD, former Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry at Vanderbilt

> University, Tennessee; heart disease researcher.

>

> The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics

> <http://www.thincs.org>

> ----------------------------

>

[Guest guest]

And were there other groups, to anyone's knowledge, who had

> excessive exposure to heavy metals in history?

Anyone who has silver (mercury) fillings.

Like T said, mercury in cosmetics. Hatmakers that used mercury to

make felt ( " mad as a hatter " ). President Lincoln took " quicksilver "

mercury as medicine. I recall he, and especially his wife, had

serious bouts of depression.

Japan's Mercury Bay incident.

Interestingly, I just read yet another article of pollutants showing

up in Arctic wildlife. This time it's the fire-proofing material

that protect computers chips.