LEAD

by Ben Reinke

My fishing pole, it bends even without a fish attached. Why is one mole of lead so heavy, did I really need six fishing weights? Should I have chosen different weights? Who would have thought this soft, gray, malleable metal that is resistant to attacks by air, water, and strong chemicals, that is so perfect for fishing weights would be so heavy and carry such hazardous risk to my health?

My early ancestors in the fourth century thought, as any self respecting mole would, that all moles are mammals. Little did they think Amedeo Avogadro would follow them and confuse generations of students with another definition. Who cares that one mole is the quantity of a substance that has a mass in grams numerically equal to its molecular mass? Isn’t a furry little mammal easier to remember and understand than 6.02 X 10 to the 23 power?

So when I chewed through this musty old Chemistry book, I found a section on Periodic Table of the Elements and it said the atomic mass of lead is 207.2. I chewed and chewed and didn’t find very many other elements with a higher atomic mass. Could that be why my pole is so heavy? And then I think the salesman told me the weights I bought were equal to 6 moles and I think I have to take 6 times 207.2 for a whopping 1243.2 g Pb. No wonder my pole bends. Maybe I could get rich by making fishing weights of aluminum, then 6 moles would only weigh 161.9 g Al. I wonder if they would stay down in the water? Or maybe I could use helium and use the 24 g He that are in 6 moles to float hooks for flying fish. Wouldn’t that give the earthworms a treat Flying earthworms!

Little did my ancestors in the fourth century know some of the illness they wrote about was caused by the lead they used to make their coins and ornaments. They didn’t know lead poses a significant health risk if too much of it enters our body. Lead poisoning is normally treatable, though some effects can be permanent, such a brain damage, it can even lead to death. The degree of damage is dependent on the amount of lead taken into the body over time. The most susceptible are children and fetuses exposed to lead in their mother’s blood. The three main source of lead poisoning are:

Water, lead enters drinking water primarily through corrosion or wearing away of materials that are in the water supply system.

Soil near heavily used streets may contain lead as a result of past use of lead in gasoline. Lead buildup in soil can contribute to high levels of lead in household dust.

House paint made prior to 1950 had a lead base and was used inside and outside of most houses. Only in 1977 were there federal regulations prohibiting the use of lead based paint. Children ingest lead when they eat paint chips. The chips can also be smashed into dust and then it is inhaled by all of the members in the house.

Even the great Egyptian kings and queens didn’t know about the risk of lead. It was so important of a metal to them that lead statues and figures were found in their tombs. Romans used a lot of silver which produces lead as a by product. I thought they knew more but they used the lead for utilitarian purposes like roofs and water pipes because it is soft and easy to work with. What a way to poison a whole population. Then my ancestors in the middle ages used lead for things like stained glass windows and my English ancestors made baptismal founts out of it. What an introduction for babies and how long do you think the people who made the windows and founts lived! They didn’t have OSHA to protect them. I just read that lead poisoning is the oldest recorded occupational disease, the hazards of lead and it’s effects were first documented in the fourth century.

But then my very recent ancestors found out adding lead in paint made paint last a long time and the colors were great. Now my relatives in poorer areas have trouble with their kids because they chew the paint or breathe lead in when the paint is broken up. And then I read there is a lot of lead in soil near heavily used streets. Does that mean if I live near a busy freeway interchange I should wear a breathing mask?

My dentist uses a lead cover to protect me from X-rays and lead helps to shield nuclear reactors because it so dense and able to absorb radioactive material. Two thirds of the lead produced in the United States is used for electric storage batteries, the kind found in automobiles.

I guess some uses of lead are OK but I wonder if we really know enough to use it safely. I don’t want to find I am nauseated or begin to lose my balance or have seizures or go into a coma or begin to have a blue tint in my skin. Maybe I should find a new material for fishing weights, especially when I eat what I catch.