"HeyBub" wrote in
m:

Kris Krieger wrote:


I actually don't know how much lead (from pipes) would eb dissolved
into water - I'd haev to aska chemist. But they used lead fro pretty
much everything it seems, fromlining cups and other food vessels, to
everyday items and utensils, and so on. It might not have been any
one thing, but when you add it all up together, what's most amazing
to me is that *any* of them survived.


Considering it took Rome longer to fall than the U.S. has been in
existence, the alternative explanation is that the hype over lead is,
um, exaggerated.


Huh?? Even despite contradicting even contemporaneous accounts, never mind
history, that doesn't make sense logically. In many ways, an empire
functions from the bottom up - even if the upper classes were having some
level of brain damage from ingestion of lead acetate, there are a lot fo
people in the lower classes still doing things as they'd alwasy doen, IOW,
in ways that had worked for hundreds of years.

Again, I don't know how much lead dissolves in average (i.e. undistilled0
water, but the thinking is that the highest lead levels occurred in those
who were ingesting luxury foods, a category whihc includes specially-
prepared sweetened wine and foods (i.e. sweetened with the syrup that was
created by reduction of the solution created by heating wine with lead).

OTOH, you're more than welcome to start ingesting as much lead as you wish,
if you *really* want to prove your point. MEanwhile, the effect of lead
poisoning was well-known to the Roams, and their successors (such as
Lucretia Borgia); additionally, in more recent times, the effect of lead
upon the neurological development of children has also been studied and is
well-known. So take all the risks with your own health taht you wish -
meanwhile, the rest of us will continue to try to avoid ingesting lead.