The roman civilization used lead pipes for drinking water.
> Yet French researcher Hugo Delile and his team, reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2014, concluded that such concentrations were "unlikely to have been truly harmful." The group also claimed that enough criticism of Nriagu's theory had been amassed over three decades to largely debunk it.
> "Lead is no longer seen as the prime culprit of Rome’s demise," Delile wrote.
(I legitimately don't know; maybe clay pipes would work?)
True, but the theory that this affected public health is a myth.