The metanarrative/received wisdom - at least in the UK - surrounding lead/asbestos and their general phase-out in contemporary society generally goes something like this: 'Lead/asbestos was really useful because it corrodes slowly/is really good at stopping fire and is found everywhere, but like radium watches etc we did not understand the dangers during e.g the industrial revolution (where they were ubiquitous) - we are now Smarter and Wiser and have phased it out'.
However, I found out only today that not only has both lead AND asbestos poisoning been understood since antiquity (as one of the first major environmental hazards!), but that this was so well known that it was accounted for (?) - from an earlier askhistorians thread:
The issue of lead pipes comes from standing water. When water simply sits in pipes, it will then pick up trace parts of the metal it sits in [...] This is important because you have to remember that the majority of the Roman water delivery system was basic gravity fed. Over long distances, the Roman aqueducts would only decline by no more than five degrees at most. This kept the water flowing constantly.
Similarly for asbestos, from this JAMA letter:
A truly new disease has a classic description to which little can be added as time goes on, but the unwary reporter of a "new" disease who ignores classical literature, whether medical or not, is apt to be only a resurrection man. Asbestosis is so "new" a disease that industry has reluctantly accepted it as an occupational hazard. And yet Strabo, the Greek geographer and historian (63 B. C.—24 A. D.) described the dangers of asbestos weaving, and Pliny the Younger (61-113 A. D.), in his description of the diseases of slaves, called asbestosis an occupational disease. Both writers stated that the use of asbestos in the manufacture of handkerchiefs, headcloths, and tablecloths was common, and that the cost of these articles was equal
I recognise that the idea of 'lost classical wisdom' is generally unhelpful or unrealistic, but on the wikipedia page for lead poisoning it suggests:
With the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, lead poisoning became common in the work setting. The introduction of lead paint for residential use in the 19th century increased childhood exposure to lead; for millennia before this, most lead exposure had been occupational. An important step in the understanding of childhood lead poisoning occurred when toxicity in children from lead paint was recognized in Australia in 1897. France, Belgium, and Austria banned white lead interior paints in 1909; the League of Nations followed suit in 1922. However, in the United States, laws banning lead house paint were not passed until 1971, and it was phased out and not fully banned until 1978.
I struggle to believe that we collectively somehow forgot that lead/asbestos are toxic - my best guess is that a combination of lobbying and under-education of the population, which resulted in other horrors during the industrial period, would account for this. But i'd like to hear from someone more knowledgeable how these substances really took off (especially in the modern UK period) and caused so much damage, when their effects have apparently always been known.
The evidence that the ancient world was broadly familiar with asbestos hazards is not that strong. [Browne K, Murray R. Asbestos and the Romans. Lancet1990;336:445.] Mostly the evidence is that asbestos was widely used -- mostly as fabric. As Strabo writes, the material ""...is combed out and woven, so that the woven material is made into towels, and, when these are soiled, they are thrown into fire and cleansed, just as linens are cleansed by washing." Industrial uses declined in the west after the Roman period although it never stopped -- there were functional asbestos mines in the Mediterranean throughout the period.
Industrial use in the west picked up again around the 1870s, at first again primarily in textiles. By the 1890s there were reasonably widespread articles about the toxicity of asbestos. 1898: “The evil effects of asbestos dust have also instigated a microscopic examination of the mineral dust by HM Medical Inspector. Clearly revealed was the sharp glasslike jagged nature of the particles, and where they are allowed to rise and to remain suspended in the air of the room in any quantity, the effects have been found to beinjurious as might have been expected.” (Deane, 1898)
But careful -- when we think "asbestos is bad" we think of the carcinogenicity of asbestos and its signal tumor, mesothelioma. For the first half of the 20th century discussion of toxicity of asbestos treated it as a fibrogenic dust disease -- a type of pneumoconiosis. It was mentioned in the same breath as silicosis or black lung disease. This was the treatment in the landmark medical studies in the 30s, [Merewether ERA, Price CW. Report on effects of asbestos dust on the lungs and dust suppression in the asbestos industry. London: HMSO, 1930]. In this we were probably rediscovering Strabo. The main aspect of asbestosis is that it generally requires very high exposure levels -- like what you'd see in mining or certain textile factories. As an industrial disease, caused by very high exposures to raw components, there was no reason to avoid consumer use, therefore asbestos got put in everything.
It was not until the 1950s and especially the 1960s that we discovered the carcinogenicity of asbestos. [Selikoff IJ, Hammond EC, Churg J. Asbestos exposure and neoplasia. JAMA1964;188:22–6; Wagner JC, Sleggs CA, Marchand P. Diffuse pleural mesothelioma and asbestos exposure in the North Western Cape province. Br J Ind Med1960;17:260–71.]
In many ways the carcinogenicity of asbestos required the development of advanced statistical and population measures. Mesothelioma has a latency period of around 30 years which means you need to track exposed people for 30 years... or do retrospective reconstructions on large cohorts of mesothelioma patients. Large cohorts of mesothelioma patients didn't exist until recently either -- even in heavily exposed populations mesothelioma is a very rare disease.
Worth noting that "how far back did they know?" is a hotly disputed question in the legal world re carcinogenicity. You can find hints and case reports from earlier then the 60s. But certainly widespread knowledge came from Wagner/Selikoff in the early 60s. I'm also eliding the VERY hotly disputed question of relative fiber potency.
So summing up, if the ancients knew anything it was likely sporadic observations of pneumconniosis, not amounting to generalized knowledge. This was again observed shortly after resumption of western industrial use. Discovery of carcinogenic effects awaited large populations of exposed individuals, statistical techniques, and sufficient latency.
I am not a historian, but I am a marketer with a MSc in Marketing. One of my specialties is the history of marketing products that were dangerous, whether the companies knew so or not, and the slow legislative banning process.
Lead: In Markowitz, G., & Rosner, D. (2000). "Cater to the children": the role of the lead industry in a public health tragedy, 1900-1955. American journal of public health, 90(1), 36–46., the authors confirm what Wikipedia says about the accumulated knowledge of the toxicity of lead, and the slowness of the US to ban lead paint.
By the mid-1920s, there was strong and ample evidence of the toxicity of lead paint to children, to painters, and to others who worked with lead as studies detailed the harm caused by lead dust, the dangers of cumulative doses of lead, the special vulnerability of children, and the harm lead caused to the nervous system in particular. Outside the United States, the dangers represented by lead paint manufacturing and application led to many countries’ enacting bans or restrictions on the use of white lead for interior paint: France, Belgium, and Austria in 1909; Tunisia and Greece in 1922; Czechoslovakia in 1924; Great Britain, Sweden, and Belgium in 1926; Poland in 1927; Spain and Yugoslavia in 1931; and Cuba in 1934. In 1922, the Third International Labor Conference of the League of Nations recommended the banning of white lead for interior use. In the United States and Canada, there were calls for the use of non–lead-based paints in interiors. As early as 1913, Alice Hamilton wrote that “the total prohibition for lead paint for use in interior work would do more than anything else to improve conditions in the painting trade.” By the early 1930s, a consensus developed among specialists that lead paint posed a hazard to children.
Now, sometimes the question gets asked "did the manufacturers and sellers know?" In the case of arsenic which used in fabrics dyes and colored wallpaper, it was banned in much of mainland europe in the early 19th century but permitted and popular in Victorian England, much to the horror of foreign scientists and politicians. But in England there was a level of ignorance and denial, and many sad stories of sickness and death. (Read the excellent books Bitten by Witch Fever: Wallpaper & Arsenic in the Nineteenth-Century Home by Lucinda Hawksley, and Fashion Victims: The Dangers of Dress Past and Present by professor Alison Matthews David). In the case of lead however, the manufacturers definitely knew.
Markowitz & Rosner (2000) point out that
in 1939, the National Paint, Varnish and Lacquer Association (NPVLA), a trade group representing pigment and paint manufacturers, wrote a letter marked “CONFIDENTIAL Not for Publication,”…informed its members that toxic materials “may enter the body through the lungs . . . through the skin, or through the mouth or stomach.” The letter specifically pointed out that lead compounds such as white lead, red lead, litharge, and lead chromate “may be considered as toxic if they find their way into the stomach.” The NPVLA reproduced for its members a set of legal principles established by the Manufacturing Chemists’ Association regarding the labeling of dangerous products.
So, basically, they thought they were off the hook legally and morally if they labelled their products as toxic. But then to answer your question about why use was so widespread, we look at the marketing of the product, which promoted lead in everyday home products not just as effective and safe, but “the pigment industry emphasized lead paint’s “healthful” qualities.” Their marketing campaigns targeted both adults and kids. The best example of this is an early 1920s coloring in book and poem called “The Dutch Boy's Lead Party” which was given away with catalogs along with some watercolor paints. I could document 50 years of lead industry marketing, but this is truly the most egregious. Of all the links here, read this. It's short and shocking.
To confirm your point about consumer ignorance, Markowitz & Rosner (2000) mention that in 1943 Time magazine reported on an article by pediatricians Randolph Byers and Elizabeth Lord in the American Journal of Diseases of Children (“Paint Eaters,” Time, 20 December 1943, 49). Quoting Time, Markowitz & Rosner (2000) noted that
parents’ lack of understanding of the dangers of lead-based paint led many to use this toxic material on toys, cribs, and windowsills.
In response, the The Lead Industry Association (LIA) did what we now famously know the Tobacco industry did (and wonderfully demonstrated in the movie and book Thank You For Smoking) Markowitz & Rosner (2000) note that they
“maintained that the assumption regarding the relationship between lead poisoning in early infancy and later mental retardation had not been proven and that many of the cases of lead poisoning had “never been conclusively proven.”
In 2007 Rosner and Markowitz followed up with the excellent paper titled “The politics of lead toxicology and the devastating consequences for children” (American journal of public health, PMID: 17486583 DOI: 10.1002/ajim.20435) in which they document and explain three primary means that were used to undermine the growing body of evidence of the toxicity of lead.
In the 1920s, the General Motors Company, with the aide of DuPont and Standard Oil Companies, established the Kettering Labs, a research unit at the University of Cincinnati which, for many decades was largely supported by industry funds. In the same decade, the lead industry sponsored the research of Joseph Aub at Harvard who worked on neurophysiology of lead.
A second way was to shape our understanding of lead itself, portraying it as an indispensable and healthful element essential for all modern life. Lead was portrayed as safe for children to use, be around, and even touch.
The third way that lead was exempted from the normal public health measures and regulatory apparatus that had largely controlled phosphorus poisoning, poor quality food and meats and other potential public health hazards was more insidious and involved directly influencing the scientific integrity of the clinical observations and research. Throughout the past century tremendous pressure by the lead industry itself was brought to bear to quiet, even intimidate, researchers and clinicians who reported on or identified lead as a hazard.
This isn’t a scientific paper, but I’m sure the mods will allow this 2013 article written by Rosner and Markowitz titled “Why It Took Decades of Blaming Parents Before We Banned Lead Paint,” which summarizes their two aforementioned papers in a shorter form.
In addition to these two academic papers, I highly recommend the book Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything by medical doctor Lydia Kang and Nate Pedersen, and the aforementioned Fashion Victims by Allison Matthews David, an associate professor in the School of Fashion at Ryerson University. Both of these are well researched and provide a multitude of excellent references, and they have excellent chapters on lead. However as you read about other toxic substances, patterns emerge, which include public denial, public ignorance, scientific corruption and undermining and doubt casting by manufacturers, knowledge of toxicity but apathy at the suffering of lower cases who get the higher dosages (from "who cares if slaves go insane and die mining lead", to "who cares if my seamstress suffers"), and the glacial pace at which the legislative process has always run at.
If you have read this far, I hope this gives you some of your answer. I'm happy to answer follow-ups, and also link to some of my own Science Communication work on this topic, if mods will allow.