Oren wrote:
On Tue, 24 Mar 2009 07:22:34 -0700 (PDT), stan
wrote:

Was it not the Romans, whose Emperors thought their empire was
forever and then poisoned themselves with wine sweetened by keeping
it in containers made of lead and often went mad? By contrast the
common folk (plebeians?) who couldn't afford lead and depended on
simple pottery for containers, fortunately, survived.

They did not have tin cans, I think. It was seamen, sailors, and early
explorers of the new world, that needed to store preserved food for
long journeys across the vast oceans.

Lead was used to seal the tin cans. Not like today's Campbell soup
can.

The Romans did, however, have lead water pipes. This turned out to not be a
problem because of the high alkali content of water in the region. Almost
immediately the pipes were coated with a layer of lime, effectively
isolating the water from the lead.