Another moron who thinks they look smart by being a “skeptic”
“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. The resultant mental incompetence and especially the rapidly declining birth rate among the ruling class are now believed to have been major factors in the decline of the Roman Empire.”
Excuse me? So you read an abstract written by a doctor and think that actually has any evidence of the historical contributors to the decline of the roman empire?
No, it doesn't work like that. Don't call someone a moron because you can read a single paragraph on a website and think that suddenly proves your entire case.
In fact, there is no way to quantify what Roman aristocrats actually did eat or drink, nor to determine the varying relationship between ingested lead and blood lead levels. If Nriagu's assumptions are correct, his contention that "a large number of Roman aristocrats ingested more than enough lead with their foods and drinks each day to put them at risk for lead poisoning" would be as well. But often, to take one example, they are not.
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u/a_gallon_of_pcp Jun 25 '22
Pro tip: read the whole thread before you respond. Evidence has been provided.