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Abstract
Lead (Pb; Latin: plumbum) is a ubiquitous chemical element with the atomic number of 82 that is known to have major neuro toxic effects in humans (as well as other animals). It is a neurotoxin that accumulates in in bones as well as soft tissue and the reality of lead poisoning (Pb neurotoxicity) has been noted by ancient Chinese, Greeks and Romans. Lead has classically been found in many places of Homo sapiens' environment and thus, exposure of human beings to lead has been a common dilemma for millennia. This article explores some of the known complications of lead poisoning in pediatrics with the caveat that there is no safe blood level of lead in children or adults and prevention is the only way to avoid a lifetime of neurotoxic damage from unnecessary lead exposure in children and adults.
Keywords: Children, lead, lead poisoning, neurotoxicity, public health
Introduction
Lead (Pb; Latin: plumbum) is a chemical element with the atomic number of 82 that is known to have major neurotoxic effects in humans (as well as other animals). The reality of lead toxicity has been known for over 2 millennia by ancient humans in China, Greece and Rome (1). For example, Nicander of Colophon was a Greek poet and physician who wrote about lead poisoning in the second century BC; he is a credible source who wrote a classic hexameter poem, Theriaca, that received positive acclaim by the Roman philosopher and politician, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC-43BC) as well as the Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder (Gains Plinius Secundus: 23-27 AD) (1-3). Nicander also wrote a hexameter poem called Alexipharmaca that dealt with poisons and antidotes (4).
Gleaming, deadly white lead (description of lead by Nicander in the 2nd century BCE)
Another ancient scholar to warn of lead poisoning was Pedanius Dioscorides (40-90 AD) who wrote the classic De Materia Medica (Latin for "on Medical Material") in about 60 AD that became the standard encyclopedic pharmacopoeia of herbs and medicines from the mid-first century until the Renaissance period. In his five volume document this learned Greek physician, pharmacologist, and botanist alerted his own and his future world about the dangers of toxins such as lead damaging the mind: "Lead makes the mind give...