No abstract

Historical background Many of the symptoms associated with lead toxicity have been known since ancient times. Hippocrates is said to have been familiar with the colic that accompanies the acute form of toxicity, and in the second century B.C. the poet Nikander set the description of a terminal case to verse (Latin tr. 1532, cited in Major 1945). Medical awareness of the toxic properties of lead apparently did not reach the Roman nobility. Water was piped through conduits fashioned of the malleable, corrosion-resistant metal, and food was cooked and beverages stored and drunk out of vessels lined with poorly-fired lead glaze. The resulting neurological and reproductive deficits that plagued many wealthy Romans have been postulated to play a key role in the decline and fall of the Empire (Gilfiiian 1965). An ailment termed the "Devonshire colic" was described by Huxham in England (1738, cited in Major 1945), and 29 years later Baker demonstrated that the drinking of cider contaminated fey lead-lined cider presses was the direct cause (1767, cited in Major 1945). The European practice of sweetening alcoholic brews with litharge (lead acetate), and the contemporary custom in this country of distilling illicit whiskey through old automobile radiators and flavoring the distillate with old battery plates have generated a small but steady stream of saturnism cases among the less discriminating imbibers (Hammond 1969). Benjamin Franklin was familiar with the syndrome.