Brush with Death

During the 20th century, lead poisoning killed thousands in the US. This text offers a history of this type of poisoning, focusing on lead paint and leaded gasoline, and exploring the regulatory mechanisms, medical technologies and epidemiological tools which arose in response.

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During the 20th century, lead poisoning killed thousands of workers and children in the US. Thousands who survived lead poisoning were left physically crippled or were robbed of mental faculties and years of life. In this work, social historian Christian Warren offers a comprehensive history of lead poisoning in the USA. Focusing on lead paint and leaded gasoline, Warren distinguishes three primary modes of exposure - occupational, paediatric and environmental. This threefold perspective permits a more nuanced exploration of the regulatory mechanisms, medical technologies and epidemiological tools that arose in response to lead poisoning. Because of profound shifts in the definition of childhood lead poisoning, children now undergo aggressive "deleading" treatments when their blood-lead levels reach one-third of the average blood-levels for urban children in the 1950s. Warren links the repeated redefinition of lead poisoning to changing attitudes towards health, safety and risk. The same changes that tranformed the social construction of lead poisoning also transformed medicine and health care, gave rise to modern environmentalism and fundamentally altered jurisprudence.