Lead in wine through the ages

The contamination of wine with lead, inadvertent or on purpose, is followed from Roman times until the 19th century. The result of lead poisoning, the cholera Pictonum, is described and identified among Roman patricians and the inhabitants of the wine-producing regions of Europe in the 17th century; the connection between the disease and the practice of 'correcting' wines with lead compounds was drawn in 1696 by Eberhard Gockel, the city physician of Ulm. The possibility of kidney damage caused by lead poisoning as a link between three epidemics of gout-among the Roman upper classes, the English gentry of the 18th and 19th centuries and consumers of Alabama moonshine-is discussed.