Highlights about Knowledge of the Health Effects of Lead
Date
370 BCE
Person, Nation, Location
Hippocates
Comment
He noted lead as the cause of colic in a metal
worker.
200 BCE
Nikander (Greek Physican)
Noted that lead caused colic, pallor, and
paralysis of limbs.
100 CE
Pliny of Rome
100 CE
Vitruvius of Rome writes "On
Architecture"
Workers advised to wear masks to avoid
breathing in [lead] dust .
He described diseases of workmen who
handle lead such builders of aqueducts and
sanitation planners.
Medieval
France
14901555
Poitiers colic in France
1696
Physician in Wurtemberg writes
of Colica Pictonum (dry
bellyache) as caused by
adulteration of wine with lead.
Bernardino Ramazzini a
professor at Padua from Carpi
near Modena, Italy.
Massachusetts Bay Colony in
U.S.
1713
1723
Agricola writes in De Re
Metallica
1745
Thomas Cadwalader, in
Philadelphia.
1757
Theodore Tronchin, physician
to Voltaire in France.
1767
Devonshire Colic written on by
George Baker in England.
An outbreak of lead poisoning of epidemic
proportions.
He described hazards of mining as an
occupation and associated Illnesses, including
lead poisoning.
Litharge was found to have been used as a
"sweetening agent" in acidic wine--he argued
against acid as the cause of the colic.
As he wrote the first treatise on "Occupational
Disease" in De Morbis Artificum (disease of
workers) and noted the diseases of painters.
Concerns over lead in cider and rum from
processing, resulted in passing laws to require
only tin be used in stills.
A lecturer in Philadelphia; Cadwalader wrote
"Essay on the West India Dry-Gripes," an
account of chronic lead poisoning from rum
distilled in lead pipes. It was published by Ben
Franklin.
Early he described lead poisoning and de
Colica Pictonum.
Asserting lead in cider causing the dry
bellyache, George Baker of Cambridge
presented 7 papers at the royal College of
Physicians in London between 1767 and
1785. Lead contaminated cider by contact
with lead in storage vats and suspension of
lead balls into the wine to sweeten it.
1779
Thomas Percival in England
wrote "Observations and
Experiments on the Poison of
Lead" published in London,
1779.
James Hardy in Britain.
To avoid lead poisoning, Percival warned
against keeping vinegar or pickles in glazed
pottery.
1795
Ben Franklin (letter from Paris
to Philadelphia)
He wrote to friend Benjamin Vaughn,
observing the various occupations that can
result in exposure to lead and subsequent
poisoning, the symptoms of poisoning, and to
some extent ways of avoiding exposure.
1839
Tanquerel des Planches in
France.
1878
Ruiz-Sandoval, 1878
He published a description of acute lead
poisoning based on 1213 admissions to clinic-or 1207 persons with lead colic. He
described the type of work that they did. 800
of the cases were in painters or workers
involved in the manufacture of white or red
lead pigments.
Noted severe lead intoxication among
ceramists and those consuming food prepared
in lead-glazed pots.
1869
Allbutt, an internist in England.
Observed that lead poisoning could cause
total blindness from atrophy of the optic nerve.
1883
The Factories Act in Britain.
Standards for white lead factories were
adopted in Britain to prevent lead poisoning.
1892
J. Lockhart Gibson, Australia
In Brisbane, Queensland Australia, a
physician observed cases of childhood lead
poisoning, and linked the cases to exposure
from peeling lead-based paint by 1904.
Published more studies through 1904.
1897
Aspinall's Enamel advertised
made without lead and is nonpoisonous. Available in
London, Paris and New York.
1899
Lead poisoning became a
notifiable disease in Britain
1778
Dry belly-ache (colic) reported from drinking
water from cisterns where water was drawn
from rain water from roofs painted with red
lead. He also wrote of pewter as a cause of
the dry bellyache.
.
1910
British Royal Commission
Commission recommended women be
exempted from lead trades.
1914
1920s.
Reported by Thomas and
Blackfan in Maryland.
Dr. Alice Hamilton
Dangers of lead-based paint reported for
Baltimore--first case was a 5 yr.old boy.
Dr. Hamilton studied occupational exposures
between 1910-1934. She argued against
adding lead to gasoline observing that lead
would become a public health problem.
1924
White Lead Treaty
Many European and some South American
countries were signatories to the treaty, which
limited use of white lead in paint. Some
countries either banned or restricted use of
white lead in paint from 1924 to present.
1922-25
As a result of tetraethyl lead
proposed as an additive to
gasoline, the public health
community argued over its
safety and in earnest began
research into its health effects
in the U.S.
Nine worker deaths were attributed to the
"loony gas" at the Bayway plant in Elizabeth,
NJ, and the Deepwater (Chambersberg) plant
in Salem County NJ. Over 300 were poisoned.
Work was halted for a year while General
Motors funded the Bureau of Mines to do
research on the safety of the product and held
veto power over any report.
Dupont held the controlling interest in General
Motors at that time. GM sought to build bigger
faster cars to overtake Ford, then the number
one car company in the 1920s.
The public health community became split on
if there was a threshold for damage.
1930s
Lead trade organizations
launched a public relations
campaign to convince the
public that lead in paint was
like mothers milk--safe for
children and kittens (pets) in
the U.S.
Reported in Williams (1933)
This PR campaign was in response to growing
public health concerns about childhood lead
poisoning linked to deteriorating paint
containing lead.
Elizabeth Lord and Randolph
Byers publish a study on "late
They studied 20 children who had been
hospitalized for lead-poisoning during infancy
19311932
1943
Children poisoned from burning of battery
casings in Baltimore. Many poor families
burnt battery casings as fuel during the
depression.
effects of lead poisoning on
mental development” of
children in the American
Journal of Diseases of Children
and early childhood. They concluded that the
early lead-poisoning prevented 19 out of the
20 children from “progressing satisfactorily in
school,” showing for the first time that the
effects of lead poisoning continued after
treatment. This study initiated the modern era
of lead toxicology. (Byers and Lord, 1943)
1953
Clair Patterson Caltech
geochemist, who did research
on "moon rocks" and published
on the age of the earth in the
U.S.
1966
Senator Muskie holds hearings
on lead in gasoline
1970
The Surgeon General lowers
the level of concern from 60
micrograms per deciliter, which
had been considered the upper
limit of normal, to 40 mcg/dL.
Dr. Jane Lin-Fu publishes a
paper in the New England
Journal of Medicine.
Noted that the actual determination of the
lead-uranium isotopic composition of iron
meteorites from the time of the formation of
the solar system required development of
sensitive analytical chemical methods to
prevent the laboratory contamination of
extraneous lead. He deemed this impossible
due to historical human use and
environmental dispersal of lead.
Senator Muskie’s committee holds hearings
on the environmental and public health
consequences of lead in gasoline---the
withholding of research findings on the lack of
safety of tetraethyl lead came out in the
hearings.
Jane Lin-Fu promises to personally answer
any letters the agency receives complaining
about the lowering the level of concern.
1972
1970
The Clean Air Act
1973
Catalytic Converter
The paper documented the importance of
early identification as a critical step in
preventing overt lead poisoning and
suggested that central nervous system
damage may occur in the absence of overt
signs and symptoms.
The common belief at the time was that
children must present with overt symptoms to
be considered lead poisoned.
Efforts were made to reduce toxins in the air.
With the introduction of the catalytic converter,
reductions in auto emissions became
possible.
The advent of the catalytic converter resulted
in unleaded gasoline becoming widely
available, because leaded gasoline ruins the
catalytic converter.
reg/ EPA ulation.
1978
1979
1986
1990
1991
1992
U.S. ban on lead in paint to be
used for residences went into
effect.
Herbert Needleman
U.S. required lead-free solder
used in potable water systems.
Herbert Needleman and
Bellinger publish in New
England Journal of Medicine
The Public Health Service
lowers the level of concern to
10 micrograms per deciliter.
Housing Act of 1992 contains
Title Ten (X) that included rules
on disclosure of known lead
hazards to potential buyers or
renters of property.
Seminal paper on the effects of low level
exposure of lead on children. Socio-economic
variables were held steady. In a series of
follow up studies the children with higher lead
were rated as more distractible, hyperactive
with what was characterized as learning and
behavioral problems likely to lead to school
failure.
After an 11-year follow-up of children whose
deciduous teeth they studied for cumulative
lead exposure during their developmental
period. They found that the children were
seven times more likely to drop out of school
and more likely to suffer around a two-year
delay in reading.
Title X also permitted buyers to have property
tested for lead within ten days of a sale.