>>17936412 (OP)
Lead is chemically and physically really useful.
Chemically it enables some nifty reactions and compounds, which made it useful for paint and fuel.
Physically, iron and steel are harder to work with, meanwhile you can easily hammer cold lead into shapes. Copper is a bit too valuable to be used for the purposes lead got used for.
>>17936425
It is, but radioactive shielding is a rather niche use and not prone to poisoning people with lead. When people get lead poisoning it's usually from paint, pipes and fuel, not because they chewed on the X-ray room door.
>>17936447
they very likely didn't use lead pots to make it sweeter, since the sugar content was so much higher the lead acetate didn't make a difference
however other acetate salts that form when the acedic acid in the wine reacts with the pot have a nasty metallic taste, while lead acetate happens to taste like sugar, so it didn't ruin the taste
