Roman Lead Poisoning Once Again ... Still

[Narukami]

A recent article in the Washington Examiner, dealing with Federal Government plans to reduce lead poisoning, raises once again the old canard about lead poisoning and ancient Rome.


Historians and scholars have also linked lead poisoning to some of the ancient Roman emperors.

"Symptoms of 'plumbism' or lead poisoning were already apparent as early as the first century B.C.," wrote Jack Lewis in the EPA Journal. "Julius Caesar for all his sexual ramblings was unable to beget more than one known offspring. Caesar Augustus, his successor, displayed not only total sterility but also a cold indifference to sex."

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local ... 64274.html


I wonder what "scholar" it is that said Augustus was "totally sterile" ...?

Have I been mistaken all this time in believing that Augustus had a daughter named Julia? Was that not his daughter by Scribonia? Or is the inference here that he was not really the father?

Actually, I thought the concept of lead poisoning via the water system had finally been laid to rest.


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lostempire ... ring2.html

NOVA: Did they have no sense, then, for the dangers of lead?

AICHER: Actually, they did. At least Vitruvius did. He makes his point by saying, "Hey, look at the people who make these lead pipes!" Apparently, these workers weren't in the best of health.

NOVA: What do you think of the theory that the Roman Empire collapsed because the Romans suffered from lead poisoning?

AICHER: Not much. The Romans did use lead in their pipes. However, two things about the Roman water supply mitigated the unhealthy effects of lead. The first is that the water in the Roman aqueducts rarely stopped running. They had shut-off valves, but they didn't use them much. The water was meant to move. It would flow into a fountain or a basin. Overflow would pour into the gutter and then flush the city.

Today, if you have lead pipes, they tell you to let the water run for awhile before you drink it. That prevents water from sitting in the lead pipes and becoming contaminated. That flushing out happened naturally in the Roman system.

Secondly, a lot of the water, especially in Rome, was hard water. It had lots of minerals in it that would coat their pipes. We often use filtration systems to take some of the minerals out. The Romans didn't have that, so these minerals would encrust and coat the inside of the pipe. That layer of minerals served as a buffer. In fact, the aqueduct channels would gradually accumulate these deposits. Periodically, they would have to chip out all the encrustations.


Ah well, some myths die hard. :?

:wink:

Narukami

[Robert Vermaat]

I wonder what "scholar" it is that said Augustus was "totally sterile" ...?
Have I been mistaken all this time in believing that Augustus had a daughter named Julia? Was that not his daughter by Scribonia? Or is the inference here that he was not really the father?
Actually, I thought the concept of lead poisoning via the water system had finally been laid to rest.

Even IF Augustus would have been sterile it would be idiotic to link this to lead poisoning due to drinking water from lead pipes. I mean - either Augustus drank far more than his compatriots, or all those who drank the water would have been sterile too! hock: It would have meant the end of the Roman Empire!

Some myths die hard because people just can't add up. :mrgreen:

[Simplex]

Exactly, Robert ...
.....and if you take additionally into consideration that the Romans even seemed to use lead-compunds for the preservation of food a lot, a considerable number of Romans would have been "late* Romans" even by the beginning of the Early Empire , :mrgreen: .......

Greez

Simplex

*=courtesy one Mr. John Cleese

[Eleatic Guest]

Hodge has summarized best the reasons why lead poisoning was very unlikely then:

The great disadvantage of lead has always been that it is poisonous. This was fully recognised by the ancients, and Vitruvius specifically warns against its use. Because it was nevertheless used in profusion for carrying drinking water, the conclusion has often been drawn that the Romans must therefore have suffered from lead poisoning; sometimes conclusions are carried even further and it is inferred that this caused infertility and other unwelcome conditions, and that lead piping was largely responsible for the decline and fall of Rome.

In fact, two things make this otherwise attractive hypothesis impossible. First, the calcium carbonate deposit that formed so thickly inside the aqueduct channels also formed inside the pipes, effectively insulating the water from the lead, so that the two never touched. Second, because the Romans had so few taps and the water was constantly running, it was never actually inside the pipes for more than a few minutes, and certainly not long enough to become contaminated. The thesis that the Romans contracted lead poisoning from the lead pipes in their water systems must therefore be declared completely unfounded.

SOURCE: Hodge, A. Trevor (1992), Roman Aqueducts & Water Supply, London: Duckworth, ISBN 0-7156-2194-7, p. 308

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Heard a story one day about inside glazing of amphorae containing lead, or wine barrels containing lead.....

Any info on that ??

M.VIB.M.

[Simplex]

...well, ah partly -- at least: :oops:
[attachment=0:5ba936xt]<!-- ia0 BleiAlsKonserv-Röm.jpg<!-- ia0 [/attachment:5ba936xt]
Translation (approximately):
Top line: Defrutum Gefäße (vasa defrutaria)
Abb./Pic 157: Worms (Museum im Andreasstift Inv. R 4666): Bi-handle Amphora with inscription
(Cat.-No.:90d/ the correct Cat.No. is infact 92; as I’ve already mentioned earlier, Theiss-Verlag was not “scroogey” with mistakes those days.)
Fabrication of concentrated grape juice is proven for the Rhine- and Mosel area. As ancient writers keep emphasizing, the fabrication vessels for concentrating juice should be made of lead. So far large
lead pots have been found in the Mosel area, but mostly in the Rhine area. That included pots found at Kindsbach near Kaiserslautern,, Mußbach, Neustadt/Weinstrasse, Biedesheim near Kirchheimbolanden, Worms and one from the winepress at Bad Dürchkeim-Ungstein. All those stem from the late antiquity, when (the existence of) intense viticulture in those areas has been proven.
Their shape is uniform with a real flat conical body and a wide bottom. The opening is quite small as to prevent fast dehydration during the long-time cooking. The height is about 60 cm, wheras the width is varying . Most pots stayed undecorated, except for those from Biedesheim and Worms (Abb./Pic 156) ……..
Careful and uniform heating of these pots was not done on open fire rather than indirectly with the pot leaning towards a source of heat, probably an oven (furnace ?). To empty it the pots where turned upside down. In that state the decorated bottom became visible, too.
Through its good heat-conducting properties, lead is perfectly suited for a slow and careful process of heating up. Trials of cooking-up, performed by H. Eschnauer (“Vas defrutarium plumbeum in Germania” in : Zur Reinheit der Weine in 2000 Jahren (The purity of wines since 2000 years) – vinum et plumbum.” Schriften (zur) Weingeschichte [Scripts on the history of viticulture] 103 [Wiesbaden 1992]pp 19-26; here : page 24), showed during cooking a white crust out of lead bicarbonate [Pb(CO3)22 ] built up.
When cooking grape juice lead(II)-ions go into solution, then forming difficultly soluble lead-bicarbonate with aerial carbonic acid [H2CO3 ]. Lead(II)-ions increase the sweetness of the grape juice
while at the same time improving the conservation through their antiseptic action which prevents fermentation. [H.Eschnauer/P.Haupt , Römischer Wein am Rhein/Roman wine at the Rhine; Ein Beitrag zur Ingelheimer Weingeschichte/A contribution toward the history of wine at Ingelheim; Katalog zur Ausstellung des Museums an der Kaiserpfalz( Catalog Exhibtion of the Museum at the Kaiserpfalz[Royal palace]; Ingelheim 1996, hier/here: p14]
The leaden pot from Bad-Dürkheim preserved grape-grains, which showed an extremely high content of lead, which can only have been enriched during that enduring cookingin that leaden pot.
Measuring the (numerical) relations of the lead-isotopes showed identical numbers in both pot and grains.(Eschenauer/Haupt 1996, pg 13)
The use of leaden pots is a risky procedure healthwise, of which they had not been aware in the antiquity. Forgery of wine was commonplace in the middle-ages and can be proven until the 19. Century. (F.Bassermann-Jordan, Geschichte des Weinbaus I-II/History of viticulture, Frankfurt/Main 1923)
Concentrated grape juice (Süßreserve/“Sweetening Reserve“) is used in refining wines up to the present times and is added to the wine in a certain percentage before bottling it. To stop (further) fermentation (here) nowadays sulphuric dioxide is used. (W.Reisinger, Aus der Rotweinstadt Ingelheim/From the “redwine city” Ingelheim – “Römische Süßerserve und Reisinger-Süßreserve”/„Roman sweetening reserve and Reisinger sweetening reserve“; Faltblatt zur Ausstellung VICUS-VILLAE-VINUM/ Leaflet of the Exhibition …..;--- Der Ingelheimer Raum in der Römerzeit/ The Ingelheim area in roman times; Ingelheim 1996)
Notes :
I’m not quite sure if THAT was the essay I was referring to in my reply up above or whether I#messed up my recollection somewhat.
1. The essence of this essay is that the Romans used unhealthy ways in preserving by utilizing lead compositions/compounds.
2. I still have my doubts whether the author didn’t somehow mix up lead bicarbonate and
lead acetate [Pb(CH3COO)2 • 3H2O] – or did I ?
EDIT:
3. I also wonder whether using lead this way was confined to late antiquity ( at least in the northwestern provinces ) or not and if not how did it show its traces in the burial/funeral remains ?
Maybe I should delve still a little bit more into that stuff. :roll:
Prosit.

Simplex

[A_Volpe]

Some bad info just refuses to die.

Although I do admit I was at one time toting the same info that Romans might have been poisoning themselves by using lead for waterpipes, but now I know better, and, this [new] information about mineral build up, as well as how the water is not stagnant in the pipes, et al, makes more sense to me.

I think the whole idea that lead CAN be bad for you is just so hammered into people's minds, if they just hear or see the word "Lead" they start to freak out.

Sort of like when someone says "explosion", some people actually flinch just a little (I've had it happen!)

On a side note, I -still- get things like "Whoa, Armor is like, so heavy, if you wore a full suit of that stuff, it'd be so heavy you couldn't get up if you fell", or "Whoa, armor is like, so heavy, don't you need a crane to put you in the saddle?", or, "whoa, aren't you HOT in all of that armor?", or, "Whoa, people didn't actually wear clothing like that in the 1400's...Did they?"

Or other subtle things like "whoa, you're arms and legs are exposed in that Roman gear/clothing, wouldn't you be worried about getting your arm cut off??" (this usually as I'm holding the shield up and in such a way as my arms are hidden, et cetera.

[Narukami]

With all of those "whoas" -- Has Keanu Reeves been pestering you with questions lately?

:wink:

Narukami

[Epictetus]

In a vain attempt to find out how this idea originated I stumbled across this article.

I thought this was interesting:

Rather than encrusted lead pipes, a more probable cause of chronic lead poisoning (plumbism or "saturnism" because its symptoms seemed indicative of the planet's characteristics) was the consumption of defrutum and sapa... The question is how the must was boiled and reduced, whether in pots of bronze or lead. If lead, there is a danger that the metal will be leached into the acidic juice.

[Simplex]

...interesting find, Epictetus. A very useful and concise list of References, too.
But when I reviewed this essay I easily ran into the "no-mans land" of my knowledge. A good thing, because it tends to spur my curiousness. Being (admittedly VERY roughly) familiar with one of the core sentences of swiss/german/austrian universal scientist(= physician, humanist, alchimist, philosopher, theologist) Paracelsus ( =Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim)
>>>>Vulgo (=commonly known): Die Menge macht das Gift/ ~Poisoning is constituted by the amount (applied);
>>>>in fact (!) [according to wikipedia]: "All Ding' sind Gift und nichts ohn' Gift; allein die Dosis macht, das ein Ding kein Gift ist " [reference No. 5)]
~ "All things are poison(ous), nothing is without poison; solely the dose applied makes a thing not being poison(ous)"
--- I went on searching.
I couldn't find any reference on him writing something named "De Re Metallica", so I kept on searching. At first I thought this might be another, -- antique; Theophrastus, so I took to Wikipedia again. The guy I found, was living well before the haydays of Roman Empire and originally publishing in Greek only. :?:
In search for possible latin translations of his works I performed a search again I ran into the publications of Paracelsus' contemporary Georgius Agricola, who published a paper named "De Re Metallica, I-XII".Hmmmmmm ...... :roll:
Bewilderness aside: In all, and Agricola aside here, Paracelsus seemed to have reasoned that even poisons may have their "good" sides, which is a good support for Dudicus' statement, I think.
And if as it was too prove him (well, both Paracelsus and Dudicus :wink: ) right therein I ran into several news-articles on the anti-septic and immunity-stimulating properties of lead compounds as used in ancient Egypt.
An english version is here: [url:2eqbbv6y]http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/science/19egypt.html[/url]
Hoping to contribute in clearing up the case ....

Greez

Simplex