Just thinking aloud
Perhaps only the lower orders worked and handled iron and other metals. I think that is an accepted fact. The diet for these people would have been poor at the best of times, in the aristocratic society in which they lived and therefore they would have been the most susceptible to out breaks of scurvy. As it is impractical for the aristocracy and those near the emirs to live without touching metals, magic and taboo must have formed so as not to catch what the lower orders and slave classes had "Scurvy" but still be able to function in society. It is possible that at the very top only noble metals touched the hand, then other metals in a descending hierarchy, maybe with the addition of magic symbols were made to suffice for the rest of the community. I am only throwing question into the ring but I feel they are valid.
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