Those of us who have inhabited and rehabilitated large, dark and ancient Victorian and Edwardian homes are here to tell you that long before lead was banned in paint, the lead content was dramatically reduced. And before it was reduced, the lead content was so high, the paint SHONE. It's hard to describe what those old paint jobs looked like unless you've seen a locked room in a Victorian home, painted with that stuff, which stuff went up to as much as 50% lead, and I seriously kid you not. It was beautiful -- but not a great idea from a health standpoint. Ironically, that really old stuff didn't tend to flake off as easily as the reduced lead paint used in the middle twentieth century. The really old stuff, you'd strip or burn off, and of course you didn't sand it or inhale it, or eat it. It was huge in lead content, and yet, unless you made your kids eat it to get benefits and claims (yes, this actually did happen in the last couple of decades), it was pretty inert. Like fishing weights. Or wheel weights. Or bullets.