25 lines
3.0 KiB
TeX
25 lines
3.0 KiB
TeX
\section{Lead Poisoning?}
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One theory about the disappearance of the \glassarmonica{} is that its players got lead poisoning from touching the lead glass used to make the glasses. This theory has been quite popular and persistent.
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\subsection{What We Now Know About Lead Poisoning}
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We now know that lead poisoning occurs by ingesting or inhaling it. You can touch raw lead safely-just don't eat lunch after that without thoroughly washing your hands. This is according to OSHA[???], who, if anything, errs on the side of safety.
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Go to your local fishing supply store (such as the fishing section in Wal-Mart) and you'll see lead fishing weights for sale. They are not packaged in any sort of special package to prevent you from touching the raw lead. That is because merely touching raw lead in and of itself does not pose any known health hazard[and lots of very skilled people have looked very hard at this issue]. And at your local tire store you'll see the tire mechanics balance your tires using lead weights\EmDash{}and their bare hands.
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The nuclear industry needs to store hazardous nuclear waste for thousands of years and not have it leach into the water supply. Cost is a remote consideration. The best solution that all of our technology arrived at? Embed the waste in glass, in a process called 'vitrification'. Apparently no other material will prevent the nuclear waste from being leached into the environment by water as well as glass. If glass can keep nuclear waste from leaching into water over thousands of years, it seems likely that glass can keep lead from leaching into water for the few hours a month of playing time in a \glassarmonica{} players lifetime.
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Acids, over time, can leach the lead out of lead glass. So they recommend that you not drink alcoholic beverages (which are acidic) that have been stored in lead glass decanters for months at a time.
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Lead is only absorbed through the skin when suspended in organic liquids like gasoline[???]\EmDash{}water, and glass, are not organic (in the chemistry sense of that word).
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\subsection{??? Lead Poisoning Around 1800}
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Lead poisoning was poorly understood in Franklin's day. And in fact Benjamin Franklin who was one of the first to realize the health hazard it posed.
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\subsection{??? Lead Poisoning and the Historical Armonica Players}
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It has been suggested that players got lead poisoning because they moistened the glasses by licking their fingers.[Hadlock, 525, footnote 31] But there is no mention in any of the historical literature of playing the armonica this way. Probably because it wouldn't work: short of rabies, a human being simply cannot produce nearly enough saliva to sufficiently moisten the sides of three-dozen glasses. As a player myself, I can't imagine why someone would even try, when a simple bowl of water is so much easier and-not gross!
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``Prior to the twentieth century, lead-adulterated wines and spirits probably caused more plumbism [lead poisoning] than any other non-occupational source.''[Warren, 22]
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