the atrium  
   about
   email us
   search


golden threads
   greek history
   roman history
   social history
   literature
   art and arky
   other cultures
   grammatical
   classical tradition
   faqs
   text recs
   classics profession
   alia


the atrium
   this day
   awotv
   media archive
   golden threads
   bibliotheca
   latin course
   sosii books
golden threads
lead
Date: Fri, 23 Sep 94
From: Robin Mitchell
Subject: Lead again

AP, summarizing an article published today in _Science_, reports new support for the theory that smelting operations in Greece and Rome polluted not just their own areas, but the entire Northern Hemisphere, in the greatest pre-industrial pollution. French scholar Claude Boutron "found that lead suddenly increased hundreds of times above normal levels 2500 years ago, and stayed that high for the next 800 years." The levels were recorded in the Greenland ice cap.

Date: Fri, 23 Sep 1994
From: William Harris
Subject: lead

The cited AP note on lead in antiquity is most interesting. First, one thinks of the extensive state-owned silver mine at Laurion which provided Athens with a great deal of its economic clout. The ugliness of slave-labor is perhaps matched by the pollution to air and persons resujlting from the separation of silver from the 99% of lead in which it was involved. Second, the lead "byproduct" from the silver operation can go back into any metal as an adulterant, turning up in the coinage, it is carried by hand to mouth incessantly. Third. cheap lead makes it a great material for waterpipes, unless you are aware of its poisonous properties when leached into drinking water. (This country has only specified lead-free solder in house water systems in this last twenty years...!) The rich in the ancient world who can afford indoor plumbing bear the greatest risk, while the poor who drink from wells are safe. It hs been suggested that lead-poisoning deteriorated the population of the later Roman Empire, others have maintained that the carbonate deposits found inside Roman water pipes protected the water from lead-pickup. In a course on Ancient Science I had two chemistry students deposit calcium cabonate from our limey water on lead tubes, and check with sophisticated equipment the leach-through; from our initial (short term) study, the porous carbonate deposits did nothing to retard leaching. ---- A study of population curves in the later Empire, and examination of any bones for lead might give us a far better understanding of what was happening before and after the fourth C. A.D.

Date: Fri, 23 Sep 1994
From: "McMahon, John M"
Subject: RE: Lead again

Chapter Seven of J. D. Hughes, *Pan's Travail* is concerned with pollution from industrial sources in the Greek and Roman World. Pp.125-128 especially, on lead.

Date: Fri, 23 Sep 1994
From: Joseph Day
Subject: lead

I haven't looked at the source cited for lead in the atmosphere, but I hope it isn't too Eurocentric. A colleague in world history (Stephen Morillo) to whom I mentioned this listing mentioned that, in the very period of the study, enormous amounts of smelting were going on in China.

Date: Fri, 23 Sep 1994
From: BMACBAIN
Subject: Re: lead

There have been assays of lead content in Roman bones and, indeed, the Romans had more lead in their systems than was good for them (another source, in addition to water pipes was the cosmetic use of white lead by women as a face whitener). Nevertheless, there is a long leap from this to the "fall of the roman empire". The English aristocracy of the 18th century imbibed too much lead too as a result of the way in which sherry was made. Note that this was precisely at the time that their empire was growing by leaps and bounds.

From: David J. White
Date: Fri, 23 Sep 1994
Subject: Re: lead

I too have long been bothered by the reductionist arguments that lead poisoning (or "X" or "Y") "caused" the fall of the Roman empire--as if it would have lasted indefinitely otherwise. (One problem with the lead-from-water-pipes argument, as I understand it, is that the pipes themselves quickly became encrusted with scale anyway, so in pretty short order the water wasn't coming into contact with the lead pipes as much as we might think. It's been awhile since I have read up on this, though, and so I might be missing something.) Of course, the main problem with theories of this sort is that they tend to attribute too much of a society's power and success--or lack thereof--to the activities and, ahem, intelligence of the upper classes.

Date: Fri, 23 Sep 1994
From: William Harris
Subject: RE: Lead again

It would seem there must be human bones from roughly datable finds, which could be analyzed for lead content, despite the Roman preference for cremation. There are the skeletal remains from the mudslide at Herculaneum, and there must be some traces at important battle sites. Perhaps England would be a good place to look, since the termini ante and post quem are fairly clearly defined. ----- For comparison, we could check with remains from the British pottery industry, which was already taking lead poisoning seriously by the time of Enc Brit 11 (s.v.lead). Certainly medical collections would have analyzed materials from that period. ---- Third, in the US we have been polluting areas near highways for over 70 years with tetra-ethyl lead, to the extent that vegetable gardeners were advised not to plant within 2500' of a major highway. The amounts of deposited lead certainly can be calculated for this timespan, and we can refer these figures to the French study group for comparison. ---- If we find the lead concentration much higher for the Empire than for our Industrial Revolution, we can begin to hypothesize about what happens when certain high levels are reached. This may be as important for us now, as for our knowledge of ancient history.

Date: Fri, 23 Sep 1994
From: William Harris

Subject: Re: lead

As David White says, the functioning of the "upper classes" of Roman society may not be a key to success/failure of Rome. But any dysfunction of one social niche opens the way for occupancy by other groups, and this may indeed change the course of history. The poor liberti, the Trimalchios and Juvenal's "Tigris flowing up the Tiber", not least the impecunious Christians drinking from the Fountains of Rome---- these may have invaded the socio-ecological niche of the Optimates, with the aid of lead. Outside pressure (Toynbee's Germanic barbarians) coupled with an inside infirmity would make a natural force for re-aligning the directing elements of a society. Of course, social forces can hardly be "proved" , whereas chemical traces, whether really effective changers or not, are at least incontrovertible evidence.

Date: Fri, 23 Sep 1994
From: "Daniel P. Tompkins"
Subject: Re: lead

Last year the FDA advertised a pamphlet listing lead content in various alcoholic beverages, and I sent off for it. Interesting reading. Some of the highest candidates were cheap red wines from Eastern Europe (the area Rush Limbaugh evidently included in his sample when he said the poor in America were better off than the middle class in Europe): Trakia etc. But the very highest were the brandies etc. that come in fancy crystal containers, evidently lead-laden. Watch out when you or your favorite sommelier pops that cork: get all the lead wiped off the bottle's mouth before you pour.

Date: Fri, 23 Sep 1994
From: "Robert C. Knapp"
Subject: Re: lead

The direction the discussion has taken is interesting. I am preparing to teach a seminar on "poor and poverty in the ancient Mediterranean world". They drank the water, too! So far the bibliography seems rather limited on this topic. If anyone has any favorite items to recommend, I would be most grateful. You may respond off-line if you wish.

Date: Fri, 23 Sep 1994
From: David Meadows
Subject: Re: Lead again

The Globe an Mail also summarized the article; at least they had the sense to track down another scientist to point out that even what the Romans and Greeks are supposed to have done amounts to only 15% of what has occured in the last 25 years from autos. I'd appreciate if someone actually checks the original article for this since I've never been able to find it on a newsstand: why is it the Greeks and Romans who are picked out? The Kusana empire was flourishing in India and seems likely to have been doing quite a bit of smelting. Ditto the Toltecs in Teotihuacan. Ditto the Persians. Ditto the Guptas in India. And ditto ditto ditto for numerous other civilizations. And has the effect of volcanic eruptions been factored into this? It's either bad science or (typical) bad reporting by a media which often seems to report things it doesn't understand, leaving us to straighten it out for a precious few students.

Date: Fri, 23 Sep 1994
Subject: *Re: lead pipes (fwd)
From: Jim Holoka,

I too had read that scaling (with calcium carbonate) would have sealed the lead from contact with the water passing through the pipes. An earlier contributor to this thread, however, cited evidence that lead will leach through such scaling. But would the water have been in the pipes long enough for such leaching to occur? Did not water flow through the Roman distribution system continuously? The aqueducts could not be shut off, nor did homes or public fountains have taps/faucets which were routinely shut off, thus holding the water within the pipes. I had the impression that there may have been stopcocks, but that these were used only to shut off flow to conduct repairs, etc. Thus, water would not, as a usual thing, have stood in the (relatively short lengths of) pipes long enough for leaching to have occurred in any significant degree for a given volume of water. See detailed discussion in H. Trevor Hodge, "Vitruvius, Lead Pipes and Lead Poisoning," _AJA_ 85 (1981) 486-491.

Date: Sat, 24 Sep 1994
From: William Harris
Subject: RE: *Re: lead pipes (fwd)

True, leaching progresses more rapidly in standing water, but the lead-lined aqueduct system stretched for dozens of miles, during the long flow path minute amounts of leached lead would accumulate. This is a matter for a metallurgical chemist with an interest in our problem to investigate, I suggest we cast around at our universities for such a professional person and suspend discussion (other than citing bibliography) until we have some factual information.

Date: Sat, 24 Sep 1994
From: Don Fowler

Subject: RE: *Re: lead pipes (fwd)

The piping in most Oxford colleges is still lead (mine certainly is), but we are told that we are protected by the hardness of the local water. Surely no one can detect any effect on our brains, can they?

Date: Sat, 24 Sep 1994
From: Bruce Macbain
Subject: Re: lead

Lead is blamed for the failure of the Roman upper class to reproduce itself--in my opinion incorrectly. I am not a scientist, but I believe that the effect of lead on fertility is hard to pin down. From the evidence of Roman history it is difficult to make a clear-cut case against lead. Germanicus and Agrippina, for instance, had quite a large brood but they drank the same water as everyone else. The small size of many aristocrat ic families is better explained by sociological factors such as the desire to have only one heir and not have to break up the estate (there was no primogeniture in Roman Law). Given the vicissitudes of life, if you plan on having only one son, you may easily wind up with none. There is also the point that lead poisoning produces mental and physical debilitation, which is true, I think, but here we have to keep in mind that Roman and Greek men of the governing classes did not enjoy the prolonged adolescence that we do. They started their careers in their teens, married girls who were barely pubescent, and so achieved what they were going to do in life, including fathering children, at a relatively young age, before the cumulative effects of lead poisoning could do its worst.

Date: Sat, 24 Sep 1994
From: William Harris
Subject: Re: lead

Lead poisoning does it worst damage before age of ten!

Date: Sat, 24 Sep 1994
From: Aaron M Roberts
Subject: Re: *Re: lead pipes (fwd)

As a former apprentice plumber turned Classics student, I assure you that any type of scaling in the lead pipes would have been worn through in a few years. If the water continuously ran through the pipe, the scaling would wear down much sooner. I was curious if anyone knows how many metres of lead pipe the water travels through before consumption? The questions of pipe length and continuous flow are more important than the scaling in determining lead poisoning.

Date: Sat, 24 Sep 1994
From: Kurt Bray
Subject: Roman Dogs and Lead Pipes

Speaking as scientist who lurks among the classicists, I personally find the lead-poisoning-caused-the-fall-of-Rome theory to be far-fetched. I am dismayed how widely accepted this simplistic theory has become. Based on the data I have seen, I think that the most that can be said is that SOME Romans probably suffered SOME ill health due to relatively high levels of lead. But the ancients in general were riddled with health problems of both dietary and microbial origin. The Romans were probably no more or less healthy than the barbarians who overran them. It's hard to know a lot about the health of Romans because of their common practice of cremation: there aren't that many Roman skeletons around to study.

Date: Sun, 25 Sep 1994
From: James Arieti
Subject: lead pipes and Yankee ingenuity

I have occasionally wondered, on the lead pipe analogy, whether we can account for American greatness by the fact that early colonists used cast iron pipes, thus causing, through the iron which leached off the pots into their food, their high level of energy and their absence of tired blood. Perhaps the expression, "The Great Melting Pot," which we often use to refer to America, provides, through the various transformations to which language is subject, linguistic evidence for the theory.

Date: Sun, 25 Sep 1994
From: William Harris
Subject: Re: Lead Pipes & Yankee Ingenuity

Many towns in New England which were founded in the mid l9 th c. used logs bored with a long auger and taper-fitted at the ends to drive into each other as conduits for their water supply. . This avoided both lead contamination and the scientifically attested over-ironization which James Arieti mentions, at the same time explaining why New Englanders have been unjustly accused of being "log-heads".

Date: Mon, 26 Sep 94
From: Olga Ladopoulou-Palaggia
Subject: RE: *Re: lead pipes (fwd)

Oxford water is undrinkable. Colleges only serve bottled water at high table, no ?

From: DR D GILL
Date: Mon, 26 Sep
Subject: Re: lead

For the appearance of lead in human skeletons see the Roman examples from the cemetery at Poundbury, Dorset, UK. Ref: T.I. Molleson et al., Oxford Journal of Archaeology 5 (1986) 249-53. The lead in one skeleton, a child's, matched lead from Laurion.

Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1994
From: William Harris

Subject: Re: lead

Those lead analyses are what the list has not been finding. Did you notice what the lead numbers were (child), and Laurion (skeletal?). I would like to compare these with modern figures.

From: "Dr J.H. Van Dalen"
Subject: Re: lead
Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1994

I don't think it has been mentioned already in the discussion but the Romans (or at least some of them) were well aware that lead was a rather unhealthy substance. Vitruvius writes about it in De Architectura (Book VIII, ch.vi, 10 & 11)(late first century BC). Mentioning the pale appearance of people that work with lead he advises not to use lead pipes for drinking water, but rather earthenware pipes which not only are more healthy but improve the taste of the water, in the same way, as he says, people drink water out of earthenware cups despite having the table covered with silverware. Another thing worth mentioning is the fact that lead pipes were only used where they were necessary, that is in tracts where the water-pressure didn't allow the use of other, cheaper materials. The channels in the aquaducts were mainly covered with opus signinum, a special water-proof mortar/plaster. This means that lead pipes were mostly used within the cities, where the water had to be transported underground and raised at the spot where it was needed. In this way city-dwellers that depended on public fountains for their water-supply probably did get an unhealthy amount of lead in their body-systems. Richer people on the other hand, living in atrium-houses, did have cisterns that were fed with rain-water that fell on their roofs (with the compluvium and impluvium construction). Contrarily to those who lived in the huge apartment houses they at least had access to healthier (and better tasting) kinds of water Therefore in my opinion, any alleged lead poisoning (in which I don't believe) must have had much more influence on the city-mob than on those governing it.

Date: Mon, 26 Sep 94
From: Doug Moroso
Subject: Lead in Rs

Individuals exhibit great differences of Pb absorption when exposed to the same risk. Children are of course highly susceptible, but the rate at which mature adults absorb Pb varies greatly. There are probably a no. of factors at work here, but even simple differences in diet show highly varied results, those who have deficiencies in calcium, phosphorus, vitamin D (probably C too) and iron being in higher risk categories in either absorbing or retaining Pb. In iron deficient blood, for example, free Pb more readily attaches itself to red blood cells. One could predict on this basis that poorly nourished slaves working at lead smelting wd probably have had the highest risk of lead poisoning in the R world; but females after menarche would likely have been in a higher risk category than the population at large as well. Due to the wide ranging differences possible, to draw any conclusions about effects of Pb on (or presence in) the population during the R period would require data on a large no. of skeletal smaples, representing different age groups, gender, social status & geographic dispersal, in order to eliminate the danger of extrapolating highly idiosyncratic results to the population at large.

Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1994
From: William Harris

Subject: RE: Lead in Rs

Before we run out of fuel on the lead matter, which has been occupying attention for some days now, I would like to cast in two remarks: 1) There is room for serious research, as Doug Morosco points out, which has to be done by (funded ) professionals and correlated with Pb research done in the last 20 years. 2) The amount of discussion about lead shows, I believe, our own trepidations, coming from the "discovery" of much lead in our world, and the discovery that it is VERY poisonous. Perhaps after registering the imminent danger to US, we find it better to sublimate our fears and poke into the ancient world. Having lead on one's conscience is a heavy burden indeed.

Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1994
From: Bruce Macbain
Subject: Re: lead Sender:

Did Romans *drink* the water in the impluvium? I had always thought it was merely ornamental.

Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1994
From: Birgitta Hoffmann
Subject: Re: lead

A lot has been made of the lead pipes. What I would like to know is how much water was actually transported through these lead pipes. Ceramic pipes have been mentioned and also the mortared 'open' channels of the aqueducts. In a lot of the Northern provinces the Romans actually seems to have been using the augered logs clamped together with iron, that were mentioned for 19th century towns. Perhaps our perceptions of antique watersystems is biased against lead, because photographs of Pompeian leadpipes (or leadpipes with Agricolas name on, cf. Chester) make so much nicer slides than the boring iron clamps every 6-9m in an open excavation trench or remains of some broken clay pipe?

From: "Dr J.H. Van Dalen"
Subject: Re:lead
Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1994

As a rule impluvia were connected to a subterranean cistern below the impluvium by way of a small channel in the rear (seen from the front of the house). At a sleightly higher level a small channel in the front got rid of a possible overflow, being connected straight with the street or with a sewer (these positions may differ). The cistern could be reached by a covered hole next or behind the impluvium; in several cases these holes were covered with a cilinder so it resembled a well. So both compluvia (daylight) and impluvia (water) had a functional reason. With the availability of marble and other such material of course the decorative aspect became more and more important, culminating (in Pompei at least) in houses with a double atrium, such as the house of the Faun, with one atrium with a monumental entrance and marble impluvium (probably to receive guests and business-partners) and another one that was more homely with a less pretentious impluvium, in most cases built in tufa (probably for the family and close friends).

From: Andrew Gollan
Subject: Lead oxide face powder
Date: 26 Sep 94

To further complicate the lead debate, I remember being told that matronae used white lead oxide as a face powder. Would this have had deleterious effects on aristcratic women?

Date: Fri, 30 Sep 94
From: "Martin F. Kilmer"
Subject: Re: CLASSICS digest 102 roman lead

The Herculaneum skeletons (brief report National Geographic magazine abt. 8 yrs . ago, and tidbits in other places; I haven't seen a full publication) will giv e (if they haven't already) by far thelargest body of *evidence* to date abt. Roman interostial lead. Preliminary date I have seen suggest that the majority of the victims were slaves or otherwise manual labourers; and if this holds in the larger sample, this will give us little help for the upper classes. If you want to get lead out of your waterpipes, you have to have a precipitation rate faster than your erosion rate - but the erosion can be both physical and chemical. Highly acid water will clear the lime deposits esp. if the water is also fast-moving - but highly-acid water by definition does not contain lime (which rapidly neutralizes the acid, *q.e.d.*). Most parts of the Empire were on limestone substrate, and will *not* have had acid water. On the other hand, if you boil your sherry-and-maple-syrup in lead cauldrons, you could get yourself a dandy case of acute lead poisoning in a very short time indeed. The comment that lead poisoning does its worst before age ten is very much to the point in 20th-c. N. America, where pealing paint in sub-standard housing is a major source of *ingested* lead in 'slum children' - who also get more than their share from air polluted by fossil-fuel burners. How much hot honeye d wine did Roman children commonly drink? The Romans had not discovered the jo ys of distilled alcohol (they avoided the colder climates where Nature Herself might have taught them the trick), nor did they have lead-crystal; and their pottery, even late, was slipped not glazed, so no lead there either. So let's find out how much lead a whole lot of Romans had in their bones - and especially the concntration in the bones of the skull, which have the fast est exchange-rate and most closely demonstrate the actual level in the body at the time of death. And *then*, with some solid evidence, let us go back and se e whether it's worth while to bring out the drawing board for this one.

Date: Fri, 30 Sep 94
Subject: Roman lead
From: Doug Moroso

On Martin Kilmer's well-taken point re precipitation vs erosion rates the important factor wd be the quality of the water at source before it entered the system. I understand the Rs preferred to tap sources with a rather high mineral content (though given the limestone substrates perhaps they didn't have much choice anyway); at any rate they didn't have the mod. problem of acid rain entering the system. Water that is stagnant while in contact with lead usually absorbs higher concentrations. The water was (most) always free flowing--I understand that examples of water faucets have been found, but these must have been comparatively rare--when moving thru that part of the system made of lead pipes; settling basins & storage cisterns, where the water wd have been relatively more stagnant, were not lined with lead. However speculating about sources of contamination first needs to await clear indications that excessive amounts of lead were present in Rs

Date: Sat, 01 Oct 1994
From: Bruce Macbain
Subject: Re: CLASSICS digest 102 roman lead

One question that has occurred to me is how much water did the Romans drink anyway? Perhaps not much if we consider comparative evidence from other periods. In a book on daily life in Victorian England I learned that poor Londoners drank gin, beer, and rot-gut wine in preference to untreated Thames water--and they were definitely wise to do so! It might well be that Roman of all classes and ages drank, in fact, very little water. Naturally, they would still get lead from foods boiled in water but maybe, overall, not as much as we think. Just an idle thought.

Date: Sat, 1 Oct 1994
From: John Younger
Subject: lead

In view of the continuing discussion over lead and lead poisoning in the classical world, I offer the following which a friend sent: >From *Science* 265 (16 Sept 1994) 1655 Ath. Diamandopoulos excavated a 3,000 year-old Mycenaean tomb, presumably then LH IIIC and presumably in Achaia, since he's of the XIth Ephoria in Patras, which contained, among other things presumably, 50 grams of "toxic face powder" (80% calcium carbonate & 20% lead sulfate hydrate, "similar to that of preparations used as cosmetics throughout history". "Until this finding, it was believed that Europeans didn't resort to lead-based cosmetics until the 6th century B.C., when Greek women used lead-based face creams to lighten their skin. And during the Roman Empire, says Diamandopoulos, triumphant generals beautified themselves with lead face powders before victory parades. Vanity has proved resistant to the health warnings about lead cosmetics that have been issued since at least the Hellenistic period, according to Diamandopoulos. And, he says, lead hair dyes are still in use." So, this is really why women in Minoan frescoes are painted white.

Date: Sun, 2 Oct 94
Subject: R (upwardly mobile) lead
From: Doug Moroso

Did anyone (as unfortunate as I) crawl over the Gilfillan article in Mankind Quarterly 5 (1964/65)? I recall someone on the net mentioning that he *seems* to have been an early expert in plumbism. "Nay, surely not *seems*"--at least by this article. He mentions 3 *esp. able, exhaustive and thorough* authorities--Hoffman & Kobert (1883-1909) & Stevenson (1949: unpub. ph.d. diss.). Apparently pub. research in lead toxicology after 1909 was irrelevant--or at best tangential. "Is this a rubbish I see before me?" Surely a pseudo-science is too *rich* a word for the beast. Sorry for the diatribe first thing on a Sunday morning, but I (stupidly) ignored She Who Should Be Obeyed's advice to take in a Woody Allen movie on Saturday night--to catch up on my *moral* reading instead--and was (deservedly) cast into the pit of non-believers--in *eugenics*--for my sins. However, one cannot entirely discount the salutory possibilities inherent in *aristothanasia*--esp. when living in a *cool, rainy climate*. But I'm not sure I can hang on for 6 centuries--I positively shudder when I contemplate the chronological span of the Byzantine Empire. Alas! Anyone for cadmium poisoning? "Now, Harmonia, shall we slither away!"

Date: Sun, 2 Oct 1994
From: Alexander Ingle
Subject: lead

Before the lead poisoning string is forgotten, I thought I'd send along these remarks of an environmental cleanup friend of mine.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 1994
From: Gennine M. Zinner
To: Alexander Ingle
Subject: Plomb THIS!
Al - I really enjoyed the string of messages you sent me over the last few days. It's wonderful watching a bunch of classicists argue about something which allows very little room for unchallenged opinion. Actually I don't know any more than some of the contributors. I do agree with a couple of the statements made, however. 1) One must find out a great deal more about how the pipe system was used (was it shut-off regularly?) and how long it was. These two question have a great deal to with how much was leached from the pipes, scaling or no (scaling is the build-up of natural deposits over time. In this case, CaCO3 - calcium carbonate - most likely). 2) The amount of lead taken in by a person through drinking water might be insignificant when compared to lead in wine pitchers. Wine, being fairly acidic, would tend to leach out metals quite a bit more effectively than water. 3) It is true that children are the most susceptible to LOW lead levels and it probably effects learning on some level. The type of dementia I think most folks were suggesting is the result of acute toxic exposure, probably not from low levels. 4) People tend to underestimate the uncounted ravages the Greeks and Romans and everyone else probably experienced on a regular basis. There was no treatment for bacterial or viral infections and you can imagine the horrible things that might have been floating around. The only thing I have to add on this is that there was an article in the heavy-hitting magazine Science published this past Friday (9/23) and synopsized in the Science Times (New York Times) on Tuesday, 9/27 about the appearance of very high lead levels in the atmosphere from about 2500 years B.C. until around 1700 B.C. These levels were measured in ice-pack cores from Greenland and indicated lead levels "hundreds of times above natural levels". There was a chemist at Cal Tech about 20 years ago who theorized that "vast areas of Europe were contaminated by lead as a by-product of silver refining by the Greeks and Romans. Swedish researchers confirmed his calculations this March, using lead in lake sediments to pin-point the pollution period at between 500 B.C. and 300 A.D." NYT 9/27. That's all I have to say about this one. Keep those chemistry and toxicology questions coming. If there's a really cool one, maybe we can pursue it together. By the way. I told my Aquatic Toxicology teacher about this Lead Poisoning string and he asked me to forward it to him. I'll be interested to see what he has to say about it. Later,

Date: Mon, 3 Oct 94
Subject: Lead in cosmetics (query)
From: Doug Moroso

The Science vol. 265 (1994) 1655 ref to Diamandopoulos' discovery of lead- based cosmetics in Crete is only a note about a report which was published in the *current issue* of The Lancet.
Culled from classics.log9410 and classics.log9409.
Copyright © 2001 David Meadows
this page: http://atrium-media.com/goldenthreads/lead.html