https://www.heritagedaily.com/2017/10/deadly-lead-lead-poisoning-affected-roman-empire/117150
well not quite but there is a study into the affects of lead on the Roman population, especially those who worked with it on a routine basis. Doesnt actually reveal what they have found so far but an interesting field of study nonetheless
It's a good thing the forum members aren't empires or we'd all fallen long ago.
There was a piece on the radio I heard as I was driving somewhere recently which commented that up until comparatively recently Lead Acetate was used to sweeten wine
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/sugar-of-lead-a-deadly-sweetener-89984487/
When I play romans, it's white metal that causes the fall.
That and the plastic dice.
Quote from: Mark G on November 04, 2017, 07:28:49 AM
When I play romans, it's white metal that causes the fall.
That and the plastic dice.
thats easy to correct, anyone with Romans just has to play against me and the empire will continue!
Quote from: Andreas Johansson on November 03, 2017, 08:20:19 PM
It's a good thing the forum members aren't empires or we'd all fallen long ago.
Lead may have been a contributing factor in the demise of a few relationships, however!
Quote from: Prufrock on November 04, 2017, 08:38:08 AM
Quote from: Andreas Johansson on November 03, 2017, 08:20:19 PM
It's a good thing the forum members aren't empires or we'd all fallen long ago.
Lead may have been a contributing factor in the demise of a few relationships, however!
There again I know at least one lady who claims that wargamers make good second husbands.......
since we've deviated slightly......I looked up wargaming figures on Wiki just to see what materials are used these days
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_figure_(gaming)
Interesting ins and outs for the US scene and the ban on lead. Not sure what the stance in the UK is though. In my heyday I can remember making my own figures using white metal and prince august moulding sets
I also cast Prince August figures as a kid. If I recall, there were two sorts of metal you could by for it, a "soldering tin" that was 60% lead and lead-free white metal that was much more expensive but supposedly produced superior results.
I still have some of the "tin" laying about somewhere. (About two meters behind and slightly to the left of where I'm typing this, to be exact.)
I even wrote a rulesset, heavily inspired by WHFB, for playing with my 25mm PA fantasy figures.
Absurd.
In a world where life expectancy was 25 and infant mortality was about 50% lead poisoning wouldn't have figured in the top 20 health problems you were facing. In fact, lead piping was probably a hugely positive because it was correlated with reliable water supply, technology, investment etc. etc.
Alternatively...
Yeah, those lead pipes, common up until the 1950s, but the one empire it really nailed was the Romans??
Quote from: Andreas Johansson on November 04, 2017, 11:07:37 AM
I also cast Prince August figures as a kid. If I recall, there were two sorts of metal you could by for it, a "soldering tin" that was 60% lead and lead-free white metal that was much more expensive but supposedly produced superior results.
Back in the 60s and 70s home casting figures with plaster moulds was popular. IIRC you used a two-part material called tinsmiths solder. I still have some my dad bought in a tool box somewhere.
QuoteYeah, those lead pipes, common up until the 1950s, but the one empire it really nailed was the Romans??
To be fair to the archaeologists, they haven't said anything about the fall of the Roman empire - that was the journalists.
Quote from: Dangun on November 04, 2017, 11:30:35 AM
Absurd.
In a world where life expectancy was 25 and infant mortality was about 50% lead poisoning wouldn't have figured in the top 20 health problems you were facing. In fact, lead piping was probably a hugely positive because it was correlated with reliable water supply, technology, investment etc. etc.
Inclined to agree the subject has been looked upon in isolation rather than in context. Health is in any event hard to trace as a significant cause of imperial decline: how would its effects manifest? Given that the Empire survived plagues which depleted the population by one third or more, just how debilitating could lead ingestion be by comparison?
It could be argued that it affected the judgement of emperors, but this could only be true of emperors who spent their lives drinking water with the requisite lead content and not, for example, on campaign, drinking from clear sparkling streams.
The investigation, it may be noted, deals with a site where lead ore was processed. The effects on the workers actually smelting the stuff were presumably greater than those on Gaius Sixpack who merely drank piped water.
Quote from: Andreas Johansson on November 04, 2017, 04:19:48 PM
The investigation, it may be noted, deals with a site where lead ore was processed. The effects on the workers actually smelting the stuff were presumably greater than those on Gaius Sixpack who merely drank piped water.
Yes, the lead pipe stuff is a red (lead) herring.
Indeed. Given that this sort of job seems to have been done largely by slaves of the most expendable category, it will be interesting to see if studies conclude that they died of lead poisoning or other causes (accident, malnutrition, disease or whatever).
Professor Caroll seems in part to appreciate this point:
"The village's inhabitants almost certainly were of varying social status, from slaves to free-born, and from local workers to immigrant labourers and tenants, so this research will give us an important insight into lead production and exposure among different tiers of Roman society."
Distinguishing free and slave skeletons might however be an challenging exercise.
back in the day I would rather think that steel poisoning was much more of a killer than lead poisoning was ;D
Quote from: Dangun on November 04, 2017, 11:30:35 AM
Absurd.
In a world where life expectancy was 25 and infant mortality was about 50% lead poisoning wouldn't have figured in the top 20 health problems you were facing. In fact, lead piping was probably a hugely positive because it was correlated with reliable water supply, technology, investment etc. etc.
Alternatively...
Yeah, those lead pipes, common up until the 1950s, but the one empire it really nailed was the Romans??
One of the reasons average life expectancy was because infant mortality was so high. Get past about 10 and your average life expectancy was much higher - certainly long enough that lead poisoning could be an issue.
See here for instance https://www.brlsi.org/events-proceedings/proceedings/25020
Quote from: Swampster on November 04, 2017, 07:54:03 PM
Quote from: Dangun on November 04, 2017, 11:30:35 AM
Absurd.
In a world where life expectancy was 25 and infant mortality was about 50% lead poisoning wouldn't have figured in the top 20 health problems you were facing. In fact, lead piping was probably a hugely positive because it was correlated with reliable water supply, technology, investment etc. etc.
Alternatively...
Yeah, those lead pipes, common up until the 1950s, but the one empire it really nailed was the Romans??
One of the reasons average life expectancy was because infant mortality was so high. Get past about 10 and your average life expectancy was much higher - certainly long enough that lead poisoning could be an issue.
See here for instance https://www.brlsi.org/events-proceedings/proceedings/25020
yes, the old stats issue. Thanks for the link Peter, very interesting indeed
Quote from: Jim Webster on November 04, 2017, 07:22:10 AM
There was a piece on the radio I heard as I was driving somewhere recently which commented that up until comparatively recently Lead Acetate was used to sweeten wine
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/sugar-of-lead-a-deadly-sweetener-89984487/
In the UK it was cider manufacture that tended to be the worst for lead contamination. Not only was lead acetate used as a sweetener, but the vats in which it was brewed were all lead.
WRT lead poisoning from old pipework, my father tells me that it was common practice to run the tap for several minutes before drawing water to avoid the high concentration of lead that would build up in the stagnant length of pipework. In London the water has a relatively high pH due to largely coming from abstraction through limestone. Therefore, it does not dissolve the lead pipework too much. However, if one's water supply is somewhat more acidic, it can have catastrophic effects, such as those noted here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis)
This is important with respect to Roman water supply. If it was received from rainwater, it would be much more acidic than spring water that had been filtered through various neutralizing geology.
Quote from: NickHarbud on November 05, 2017, 09:32:38 AM
This is important with respect to Roman water supply. If it was received from rainwater, it would be much more acidic than spring water that had been filtered through various neutralizing geology.
Good point. Practically* the whole of Rome's water supply came from springs (via the aqueduct route) and this approach seems to have spread across the Empire. Vitruvius is particularly keen on sourcing the right kind of spring.
*
OK, there was a bit of rainwater dropping into pools and containers, and there were sometimes people sufficiently silly or desperate to drink from the Tiber.