Abstract
There is no entirely satisfactory definition of what constitutes a ‘heavy metal’ but the group is generally taken to include at least the following: silver (atomic weight 108), cadmium (112), tin (119), antimony (112), platinum (195), gold (197), mercury (201), thallium (204) and lead (207). In their various ways, these metals have all been extremely important in human history because of their technological or commercial value. Four of the group (cadmium, lead, mercury and thallium) are toxic to man and all but thallium might have been encountered in different ways by peoples in antiquity.
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Notes and references
For details of environmental mercury poisoning see Environmental Health Criteria: 1. Mercury, World Health Organisation, Geneva, 1976
Itai-itai disease, a form of senile osteoporosis which occurred in multiparous women in Japan, was thought by some to be caused by the use of cadmium rich water for irrigating rice. The water was taken from a river which had drained through a zinc-mining area. The disease is most likely to be a form of vitamin D deficiency, however, which may have been exacerbated by cadmium. Further information may be obtained from Cadmium and Health (ed L. Friberg, C.-G. Elinder, T. Kjellström & G.F. Nordberg), CRC Press, Boca Raton, 1985
In De architectura (VIII, 6), Vitruvius states that ‘water is much more wholesome from earthenware than from led pipes. For it seems to be made injurious by lead because cerusse is produced by it; and this is said to be harmful to the human body’.
Paul of Aegina who wrote in the 7th century AD describes a colic ‘having taken its rise in the country of Italy… which in many cases terminates in epilepsy, but in others in paralysis of the extremities’ (De re medica, III, 43). This is a clear reference to lead poisoning with encephalopathy and peripheral neuropathy.
Barry PSI (1975) A comparison of concentrations of lead in human tissue. Brit J Ind Med 32: 119–139.
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There is a steady increase in the concentration of deciduous teeth, for example, from first incisor to second molar. This difference may be two or three fold. Mackie AC, Stephens R, Townshend A, Waldron HA (1977) Tooth lead levels in Birmingham children. Arch Environ Health 32: 178–185.
See, for example, Department of the Environmental Central Directorate on Environmental Pollution: Pollution Report No 18. European Community Screening Programme for Lead — United Kingdom Results, HMSO, London, 1983.
Waldron HA (1981) Post-mortem absorption of lead by the skeleton. Am J Phys Anthrop 55: 395–398.
But see also Lambert JB, Simpson SV, Buikstra JE, Hanson D (1983) Electron microprobe analysis of elemental distribution in excavated human femurs. Am J Phys Anthrop 62: 409–423, who find no post-mortem uptake, presumably because the soil conditions inhibited the free movement of lead.
Waldron HA (1983) On the post-mortem accumulation of lead by skeletal tissues. J Archaeol Sci 10: 35–40.
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11a Kent S (1986) The influence of sedentism and aggregation on porotic hyperostosis and anaemia: a case study. Man 21: 605–636.
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Underwood (nl4), pp 76–77.
See the discussion between Chapman and Paterson, for example. Chapman S (1987) Child abuse or copper deficiency? A radiological view. Brit Med J 294: 1370.
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© 1988 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Waldron, T. (1988). The Heavy Metal Burden in Ancient Societies. In: Grupe, G., Herrmann, B. (eds) Trace Elements in Environmental History. Proceedings in Life Sciences. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-73297-3_11
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