Document wxzRq1ovVzbkVqmbJb9OyEq3

V-, . 5ZZ2>fi.-KIMMRK.-7 CHICAGO 3#- Pjtd- aneno adr: g]_ Linda Vista; Pasadena, Calif. ; For next 2 weeks at Pensione Fontane : al$vlare, Via N. Tomasseo 14, Naples; ' Italy. Nov. 29, 1963. Medicine, 'V ' P e a r Dr 1Cs l i c e : ' :. ! As a writer on lead poisoning, and director of the lead metabolism studies in the Kettering Laboratory, outstandingjbn the satum- inejinjfetal, I tufo to you for hoped for and kind help}! on a project jjjuch beyong my experience, which yet no one else has attempted, nor thought of, and which &ight stfell interest you and perhaps some of your colleagues in lead research; ^ I am collecting bone samples from the Roman imperial period, to have them analyzed for lead. If I find that the rich individuals (iden tifiable by their tombs) were so heavily leaded that their women could hsve borne and raised but few or no children, and if the poor were not too badly poisoned, that will be the conclusive, simple and striking proof for my thesis explaining the fact, abundantly recorded in history but never satisfactorily explained nor heeded, that the Roman aristocracy of that period had very few children and continually died out, continually replaced by freed^en and other able parvenus from the lower ranks, who in turn died ; out on becoming wealthy. The abundance of lead poisoning in ancient Greece land Rome was proved asy^uch as 80 years ago by Karl B. Hofmann and Rud. { Xobert, GerMan pharmacologists; but they missed the class angle which (2 1gives the fact its whole interest and importance (the fact that it was !the rich who were poisoned). Also the Chemistry of their day 0endinglSO6) could not measure the lead, but only detect it as a trace, as Rosenblatt did. : .... .' , .' ' : . The social import they missed, which gives my thesis its ir> C\2 'O i o T.' AC large significance, is clear and simple; If for 15 successive generations everyone who could make or marry money was bred out of the race; so that the meek inherited the earth, as promised in the Beatitude, that would explain for the first time plausibly why Roman culture, science art and progressivness went down to the ruin and Byzantine stagnation of the Dark Agesx The same thing apparently happened a little earlier in the sudden Greek decline of genius? And the like is happening today, not thru lead bu thru birth control selective against intelligencei. After (lfiany years of interrupted work on this problem I have gone to Europe to gather about a hundred bone specimens divided bet ween rich and poor, 20 by now from 3 countries, taking such bones as the archeologists will let me have, but preferring parts of the adult scapula, vertebrae,/^?ong bones, sternum or teeth, with their sex and age when pos Gilf illan--Kehoe, p. 2 know is*how to equate one hone or hone-portion with another, how to take account of the personal age factor (tho I have one graph$, how large samples I must have, in terms of very dry hut not ash weight, and vohat process were best and cheapest for the analysis, and who might hest per form it f. I have obtained proposals from the Geochemical laboratories of Sana Bromley, Kentj, England, who would use colorimetry (dithizone I suppose$ at perhaps $15, and from McCreath in Harrisburg, who would use their new atomic flame/absorption equipment, at $14.50 per sample in ser ies. Prof-r Sandell ^would prefer the dithizone met hodfoi^accuracy ,or* the spectrographicjjimethod for cheapness; and I think its i + 10$ would be sufficient. Profr'Moorbath of Oxford would prefer (1) dithizone, (2) polarography, (3) Smissiontspectroscopy or spectrography. Copper and tin will be present in the bones, often, and must be eliminated if using dithizone< . .. The lead in the rich diet came in m ^ y ways, but especially thru their wine, and their grape sirup. .. .. I should be glad to obtain the continuing and formal co-operation of a physician knorin for his work on lead poisoning:. I have been unable to find in the medical libraries of London or Home your;own Spectrochenfjical study of the Formal Ranges , nor your Lead Absorption and Excretion in Relation to Diagnosis.3ut I have m ade notes fi-ofo hundreds of other articles and books. I.iy training has been in the social scieces, with but a course in Chemistry. I can read all the important languages.,My principal life work has been in the social science aspects of invention; itjimay be looked up in ,,,,er. _,.en of 3ci. , Soc: Sci: vol. currently, and in 1951 and earlier^. Much hoping that you can assist a fellow student on some of the above points., and thaf t ^ i tMesis:i^t.ll;:;interest>ybu^and: prove of assistance I remain , : ' ... Most sincerely yours. P.S. Pardon this foreign typewriter; which won't behave.