I was looking through some US hospital records from the 1880s that had patients nearly exclusively from mining camps and railroad employees. The ailment listed for many of these guys was "lead" or "leaded." I've seen the term used often in contemporary sources, but what is the modern name for it?
For example, it's generally understood that "consumption" usually meant pulmonary tuberculosis, but the term could be used to describe some other TB-like illness. So what does "leaded" mean? Anything specific? Or is it a vague, catch-all term that covers symptoms common to a variety of illnesses? What were the symptoms?
And what would have been the typical course of treatment for being "leaded" in the 1880s? In the hospital records I looked at, some leaded guys walked out the same day and others were admitted as long as a couple of weeks. The hospital records I have are just admission records, so I don't know what care patients received.
Any specific secondary sources relevant to the topic would be appreciated too!
I believe it to be exactly as described, illness due to exposure to lead, also known as "lead poisoning". Exposure to lead was commonplace in many industries, especially mining, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, so it's no wonder that occasionally such exposure led to illness.
Here's a couple google books results I dug up which might give more context:
P.S. Given the commonness of lead poisoning at the time and the relative state of the medical industry, especially in regards to treatment of working class laborers, it's quite possible that many maladies which merely bore similar symptoms as lead poisoning were misdiagnosed, but it's impossible to say what the proportions were.