Pest Management
People were using lead long before the rise of the Roman Empire. Lead is easy to extract from its ores, and there is evidence that small-scale lead smelting began around 9,000 years ago, in some of the earliest settlements in what are now Turkey and Iraq. The Ancient Egyptians also smelted lead – and they used lead compounds in cosmetics, pigments and medicines. A recent analysis of Ancient Egyptian eye make-up identified two lead compounds that do not occur naturally; they must have been made on purpose. In laboratory tests, these compounds elicited an immune response; it may well be that the Ancient Egyptians were aware of the fact that their make-up would reduce the chance of eye infections. Several ancient Roman medicines also made use of lead compounds – despite the fact that the Romans were aware of the phenomenon of lead poisoning.,