Roman Decline - Very interesting reason!

I was recently going through a piece of literature wherein there was only a statement, "The lead lead to Roman decline!". I was initially puzzled that how can there be a typo error in such a nice piece of work. Influenced by "Gudiya" character of "Baa, Bahu aur Baby", a Hindi weekend soap, I decided to clearly understand the sentence. In Gudiya's ishtyle, "Iss sentence mein pehla 'lead' matlabb heavy metal lead scientifically jise Pb likhte hai jii!! Aur doosra 'lead' matlabb english word lead meaning same as 'caused'" Somehow few characters of the TV serials and movies do influence our life a bit. I was compelled to browse through the internet and was happy to find the reason. Its a worth chip of history to be shared.

As we all know, Romans were known for their abilities to build one of the earliest empires. They were considered to be highly intellectuals and constructive. But little did they know that one of their brainy ideas would result in the fall of their empire!

The cartoon depicts the great Julius Caesar!!!

The romans were the pioneers in preparing the plumbing system. Can we believe that they initiated the work with lead pipes!?! So lead is also called as Plumbum and hence its chemical symbol of 'Pb'. One of the hypothesis for the fall of Roman empire was LEAD!!

One of the article in Newyork times by JOHN NOBLE WILFORD published on March 17, 1983 states that "Much of the food and wine the Romans consumed to such excess was contaminated with amounts of lead far exceeding today's safety standards. Accumulations of lead in the body can cause one form of gout, a painful and sometimes crippling inflammation of the joints, as well as the mental retardation and erratic behavior normally associated with lead poisoning. The coexistence of widespread plumbism and gout during the Roman Empire seems to have been an important feature of the aristocratic life style that has not been previously recognized and this provides strong support for the hypothesis that lead poisoning contributed to the decline of the Roman Empire". A study was conducted by Dr. Jerome O. Nriagu, a Canadian scientist who reviewed the personalities and habits of Roman emperors from 30 B.C. to 220 A.D!!! It seems the Romans used to drink high amounts of wine which as additionally flavored with a syrup prepared by brewing grapes in lead pots. Dr. Nriagu tells that "One tea spoon of such syrup can cause chronic lead poisoning!!!"

I felt this information very interesting and an addition to the examples of how an intended plan or invention proved to be a reason for drastic fall of a massive human empire!

"LEAD lead to ROMAN decline"