| Summary: | The condition which is now known as lead poisoning was familiar even in ancient times. Hippocrates (370 B.C.) was probably the first to associate lead with certain symptoms, such as severe attack of colic in a man who extracted metals. The symptoms of lead poisoning were more clearly defined in the first century A.D. by Dioscorides, “the drinking of litharge (red lead) causes oppression to the stomach, belly, and intestines, by its severe pressure; it suppresses the urine, while the body swells and acquires an unsightly leaden line”. He also speaks of paralysis and delirium as consequences of the ingestion of lead.
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