You might want to read this.
Sounds like it might be OK to drink from lead crystal glasses, but consuming liquids that had been stored in lead crystal decanters might give you a pretty big dose of lead.
Gout is a build up of uric acid in the blood. and has to do with the end product of purine metabolism.
For some reason gout attacks the big toe in most cases but can effect any peripheral joint...some cases are genetic prone to run in families...sodium urate crystals get deposited into the joint...some call it Gouty arthritis. Diet is important in controlling gout.
Patients are put on a low purine diet....I have read no medical lit. that one of the causes is drinking alcohol from leaded crystal...but alcohol itself is a causative factor, not the container it is stored in...the poor have gout and no crystal decanters. But it was still an interesting link.
I do stained glass as a hobby and if one goes into a art glass store and looks at all the beautiful different glass, you fall in love with the glass...I still have a lot in my basement and a large window I haven't worked on in ages, and its only about 1/8 left to do...(simply because this home I have now does not have good lighting for cutting glass. I use the copper foil method and have worked with 50-50 lead in finishing a window...the flux you have to use to get the lead to adhere to the copper foil is not fun to breathe in and you have to bend over quite close to the window to get good at running a bead of lead on the window...guess old age took the edge off my love of glass...but it sure is beautiful...
Any freeper that has had an attack of gout can attest to its pain.....some pain is so severe it requires narcotic's until the medication kicks in....
The leaching of lead from the glass is nothing I have any positive info on, but it is an interesting theory...
I did wander far from the original thread didn't I...sorry about that....:O)