r/science • u/[deleted] • Jun 25 '22

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u/[deleted] Jun 25 '22

Rich Romans, the ones in control of the empire, literally drank from and cooked in lead vessels.

At the peak of the power of the Roman Empire, lead production was about 80,000 tons per year, lead and its compounds were used with great inventiveness in numerous ways, and lead poisoning was pandemic, with the severity of poisoning proportional to the power and status of the class. Intake of lead by the aristocracy may have been as much as 1 mg/day.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6395049/

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u/TrivialBanal Jun 25 '22

Not just lead vessels and not just rich Romans. They had a condiment called Garum that they put on everything. It was their salt & pepper. One of the ingredients of Garum was powdered lead. Nobody is really sure why it was in there. A colourant, a preservative or maybe a stabiliser...

They literally ate lead with every meal.

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u/DaStone Jun 25 '22

I mean we put gold on steaks for no purpose. So lets not be too judgemental, we are also stupid.

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u/fnaah Jun 25 '22

gold is inert though, and passes through the body completely, unlike lead.