LUBRICANTS: An Industrial Health Hazard ?

Abstract

THE patrician families of Imperial Rome had relatively short lives and, compared with the average of that era, very small numbers of children. Historians have usually attributed both these phenomena to moral causes but an alternative theory, and one well supported by scientific evidence, is that they suffered from chronic lead poisoning. In those days the metal was relatively cheap, extensively used in cooking vessels and for water pipes and, as lead salts, in cosmetics, medicines, wine and food. The Romans knew lead poisoning of the acute type, among lead workers for example, but did not recognize it as a slow, chronic disease and this environmental health hazard continued undetected.

Citation

ELLIS, E.G. (1967), "LUBRICANTS: An Industrial Health Hazard ?", Industrial Lubrication and Tribology, Vol. 19 No. 4, pp. 141-145. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb052825