Lead on Lead on Lead (part 2 of 5)

Lead and plumbing have long been synonymous with each other. In fact, the word plumber originates from the Latin would for lead, which is plumbum.

Long before we were using lead pipes in our homes, the ancient Romans were using lead in just about everything. Water pipes, aqueducts, cooking pots, eating and drinking utensils, you name it. They all contained lead. Due to its sweet taste and lack of calories, ancient Romans even added it to their food and wine ┌(メ▼_▼)┘

Surprisingly enough, the first outbreak and banning of lead was in the German city of Ulm back in the 1600’s. It started with a severe outbreak of colic, which is an illness defined by a terrible abdominal pain that you get. The doctor of the city started to notice a pattern that all monks drinking the wine were getting sick, while the ones who didn’t were completely healthy.

Upon further investigation, it was found that a sweetening agent used in the wine, litharge, was a white oxide of lead. Since the region depended on the funds they were bringing in from this wine, you can probably guess what they did? That’s right, they didn’t do anything because they wanted to continue to make money… Yikes. Finally in 1696 (6 years had gone by), Duke Ludwig made a decree forbidding the use of lead or any lead based additives.

No toxic substance though has been more widely spread throughout our environment than the lead additive Tel in gasoline. For 7 whole decades millions of cars had successfully dispersed this substances around the world. Now how did we let this happen?

Well, in 1921, General Motor’s engineers reported great success with their first test of tetraethyl lead, which is an additive to fuel that improves engine performance. It differentiated them from the rest of the automotive corporations and put them ahead of the game. Again, why would they want to let anyone know this was toxic when they’re making such good money?

No compulsory standards were ever set for the industry until the early 1970s when EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) began. Now let’s see, all together, that’s about what? 280 years that no one decided hey, this lead thing might be a bad idea. Talk about ethical choices.

– K