Comment on "Sorry about the brain damage 🥺" - The Roman Empire
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 1 week ago
Interesting that they were generally aware of the risk and trying to mitigate it. Didn’t they also use leaden pots and sweeten their wine with lead, however that actually works?
PugJesus@piefed.social 1 week ago
When you boil grape juice down to a syrup in copper or iron vessels, the copper or iron leaves an aftertaste - highly undesirable! But boiled down in a lead vessel, a small amount of the lead reacts with the acid in the grape juice to produce lead acetate, which is slightly sweet… meaning that instead of an aftertaste, you get an even sweeter syrup! Irresistible!
The syrup would then be added to various things - including wine.
The Romans recognized that the practice was harmful and that lead was poisonous. Such ‘adulterated’ wine was attributed a wide variety of symptoms… including several we would recognize in the modern day as chronic lead poisoning.