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Re: Lead, community gardens and food
Lead is, of course, found naturally in places where people have
lived for millenia without drawing medical attention upon themselves
for their unusual medical histories. Areas of Derbyshire, in Britain,
are built upon low-grade lead ores and this seems to cause no ill
effects. As a previous entry indicated, few plants take up lead and
few forms of lead as sufficiently soluble to become biologically
active in the human.
An interesting historical aside is that Britain suffered a plague of
gout during the Napoleonic wars. It appears that the claret-drinking
classes turned to cider during the period of hostility. Cider was brewed
by crushing apples in ball mills, in which the balls were often made of
lead. (Iron was cheaper, but dissolved). As a consequence (and as a
result of the enormous amount of cider which they drank) many came
down with lead poisoning, a few consequences of which are the accumulation
of uric acid in the blood stream (and joints - hence the gout) and
dementia (hence the Rowlandson cartoons of choleric squires in bath chairs).
Bath chairs are themselves an icon of the era and a consequernce of the
malady. Taking the waters at Bath flooded the system with divalent cations
(Ca, Mg in particular) and these tend to displace Lead from where it has
accumulated. After a week or so of abstinence at the spa, our squire would
be mobile, stable and himself again, until her returned to the cider!
_______________________________________________
Oliver Sparrow
ohgs@chatham.demon.co.uk