Lead Poisoning

[Kenneth Gauck]

The Romans were very clever to use lead pipes. They saw how the Greeks used
copper pipes and copper poisoning is very rapid and very sever. Lead
poisoning is slow and subtle. It makes you stupid, agressive, and lazy.
Copper poisoning makes you go mad.

Kenneth Gauck
c558382@earthlink.net

- -----Original Message-----
From: Morg
>
>Anyway, I am curious. Are the Anuireans past the use of lead in pipes and
>pottery and such? I was thinking that some mad Emperors and crazy Dukes
might
>soon be surfacing if they are not.

[the Falcon]

> The Romans were very clever to use lead pipes. They saw how the Greeks used
> copper pipes and copper poisoning is very rapid and very sever. Lead
> poisoning is slow and subtle. It makes you stupid, agressive, and lazy.
> Copper poisoning makes you go mad.

Ah... so _that's where they got the name for Heavy Metal... ;)

[Mark A Vandermeulen]

On Tue, 9 Feb 1999, Kenneth Gauck wrote:

> The Romans were very clever to use lead pipes. They saw how the Greeks used
> copper pipes and copper poisoning is very rapid and very sever. Lead
> poisoning is slow and subtle. It makes you stupid, agressive, and lazy.
> Copper poisoning makes you go mad.

How about bronze? Anyone know how easy it is to cast/extrude bronze as
piping, and what sort of physiochemical interactions THAT would cause? If
I don't misremember, bronze is an alloy of copper and tin, so it might not
be much better than copper. On the plus side, however, metalurgists of the
time should have no lack of experience working with it.

Oh, and on the subject of windows, I would expect that window glass is
available, but quite expensive. Glass-making is a very ancient art in our
world, although glass with the quality, clarity and resilience of our
modern glass is fairly recent. If you've ever been in an older house and
looked out the window, you probably noticed that the glass appeared
"rippled" and distorted the picture. This is because glass is not actually
a solid (i.e. having a crystaline structure) but is in fact an extremely
viscous liquid--it does run, but with glacial slowness. However, many of
our modern hardeners have probably not been discovered at this stage in
Anuire, although glass improvements are probably immediately profitable
for guilds, and so I would expect them to be the subject of guild research
if anything is. Glass windows would be a luxury item, and the nobility
would probably be the cheif purchasers. However, they wouldn't be the
great panes we're used to today unless they were magically treated in some
way. Instead, most windows are made of mosaics of panes of glass not much
bigger than the palm of your hand, usually in squares or pointy-ended
ovals. Generally, think of stained glass windows, and then put clear glass
in them. And expect the glass to be good at letting light in but not as
good at letting images pass through--unless its extremely high quality
(and expensive) glass for the time it would be cloudy and distort images:
you could see that there was a man in a blue cloak standing outside the
window, but would not be able to recognize his face unless you opened the
window. However, windows are greatly desired, and anyone who could afford
one would have one. They are a welcome luxury in the summer, as other
forms of light are also heat sources.

Mark VanderMeulen
vander+@pitt.edu

[Pieter Sleijpen]

Mark A Vandermeulen wrote:
>
> On Tue, 9 Feb 1999, Kenneth Gauck wrote:
>
> > The Romans were very clever to use lead pipes. They saw how the Greeks used
> > copper pipes and copper poisoning is very rapid and very sever. Lead
> > poisoning is slow and subtle. It makes you stupid, agressive, and lazy.
> > Copper poisoning makes you go mad.

What is the difference between 'mad' and "stupid, aggresive and lazy"?
Off coarse all those insane emporers where easy to manipulate by the
younger members of the senate, who had not yet poisoned themselves. Lead
by the way is very dangerous to young childeren. What kind of copper
tubes are currently in use? An alloy between iron and copper? I do know
that poisoning is not much of a problem, in fact a recent research in
the Netherlands showed that if we were going to replace the copper
tubes, the people would get a copper shortage (yes, copper is needed,
unlike lead).

How far is the development of the press? That might also be a
development that would be very interesting to guilds. Paper would also
be one of such things. Diamond cutting is also a very recent addition to
out RL technology. With a little bit of thinking a lot more developments
could be placed in the game.

Pieter Sleijpen

[Brian Stoner]

Um, call me stupid, but don't we use copper piping a lot these days? Perhaps I
haven't been paying attention..I've never heard of copper poisoning. Of course,
I prefer plastic pipes wherever possible...but the Anuireans aren't too likely
to have that.

Dearnen

Kenneth Gauck wrote:

> The Romans were very clever to use lead pipes. They saw how the Greeks used
> copper pipes and copper poisoning is very rapid and very sever. Lead
> poisoning is slow and subtle. It makes you stupid, agressive, and lazy.
> Copper poisoning makes you go mad.

[Olesens]

Kenneth Gauck wrote:

> The Romans were very clever to use lead pipes. They saw how the Greeks used
> copper pipes and copper poisoning is very rapid and very sever. Lead
> poisoning is slow and subtle. It makes you stupid, agressive, and lazy.
> Copper poisoning makes you go mad.

Hmm, ever try redoing your palace in copper just before the rebellious mayor
took it over? Heh, heh.