Premium
What is the status of knowledge of the toxic effect of lead on identifiable groups in the population?
Author(s) -
Hardy Harriet L.
Publication year - 1966
Publication title -
clinical pharmacology and therapeutics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.941
H-Index - 188
eISSN - 1532-6535
pISSN - 0009-9236
DOI - 10.1002/cpt196676713
Subject(s) - lead poisoning , hazard , lead (geology) , population , medicine , environmental health , business , toxicology , history , psychiatry , chemistry , organic chemistry , geomorphology , biology , geology
Knowledge of lead poisoning is very old. It was known in Roman days for Pliny the Elder includes it among “the diseases of slaves.” Ramazzini, considered the father of industrial medicine, described the colic and palsy caused by lead. A century later, Tanquerel des Planches, called the Columbus of lead poisoning, made the observation that plumbism never followed the handling of solid lead but only a sick worker's exposure to “emanations.” In the United States, Dr. Alice Hamilton as late as 1912 found instances of serious overexposure to lead, in contrast to European countries where control of the hazard was reasonably complete by 1910. She writes: “From my own experiences I can unfortunately testify to the fact that, thanks to the lack of prophylactic measures, [lead poisoning] … is not even a vanishing condition, for new instances of lead tabes are being added to the number every year.”* In more recent years the lead worker has been protected from poisoning in most industries. Great strides in engineering control plus knowledge of the fate of lead in the body have changed the worker's fate, except in some small foundries and storage battery manufacturing plants. An entirely new set of questions is posed by the increase in the amount of lead introduced into United States urban air by leaded gasoline. 28 Some authors claim that the decrease in lead in food and water supplies offsets the potential hazard implied. A recent article by Patterson, 19 a geochemist, has forced review of present knowledge and ignorance of the possible damage consequent to steady exposure to levels of lead not associated with recognizable poisoning. One approach to examining Patterson's accusation is consideration of the potential hazard of low level lead intake from the environment on such identifiable groups in the population as infants and workers in lead‐using industries.