Editor’s Note: Often one reads of articles which speculate about the Fall of the Roman Empire due to the excessive use and exposure to Lead in the classical world. But this is the first article which verifies that hypothesis through the study of lead concentrations in the atmosphere during the Roman Imperial period. The study found that there was a drop of 1-3 IQ points due to the emissions of 500,000 tons of lead into the atmosphere from the Roman industries of Silver mining.
But the real shocker is that in recent decades the amount of lead pollution in the atmosphere in the West reached 40 times as much as during the Roman Empire. While the inference is only a guess, that means that since 1950 IQs in the West may have fallen as much as 40 points! And if that is true, that would explain a lot about what is going on in the Church and in the State.
Lead had / has numerous applications including: solder for electrical appliances and electronic products, solder and pipes for plumbing (named after Latin for lead), for tetraethyl lead to increase petrol octane rating, reduce knocking and increase performance in petrol engines (leaded petrol, now phased out in most countries), lead acid batteries as used in cars, vans and trucks, red lead oxide paint on ships to prevent build up of barnacles and other shelled sea creatures on ships, toy soldiers, lead crystal glassware and many more.
By no means all of these are obsolete.
An insightful statement about lead levels in blood of very young children by a British Member of Parliament for Birmingham Perry Bar – whose constituency included the UK’s most complex and probably busiest road interchange, known as “Spaghetti Junction” – is here:
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1978/aug/01/lead-pollution
Note also the centuries-long use of mercury – another highly toxic heavy metal – in so-called “silver” dental fillings until recent decades.