Lecture 1 Flashcards
What occurred during the stone age?
-The earth was in an Ice Age
-They used small group hunting for survival
-Made the Acheulean stone tool (hand axe)
Earliest “Toxicology”
-Ancestors knew some plant and animals as harmful and others as safe from experience and told this from generation to generation
-Snakes to be venomous and used this for hunting, warfare, and assassination for power
Metal age was in what age?
Ancient age in 3200-600 BC
Copper Age
-in the Ancient age
-Oldest technology was copper smelting
-pottery kilns had high temperature to melt copper
Bronze Age
-An alloy of copper with tin
-Material for making tools (advancement from stone because of its mechanical strength and ductility and it could be cast in molds to make shapes)
Iron Age
-Replaces bronze because stronger, lighter, and cheaper.
Metal age main characteristics:
-clay pottery
-produce tools and food to stay alive
-form villages to live in a community
-sedentary towns, the birth of civilization
-Metals are the fabric of human history and the engine of toxicology
Invention of writing
-Ancient age
-3000 BC
The Ebers Papyrus
-An Egyptian medical papyrus (textile writing fiber materials for writing) of herbal knowledge 1500 BC
-Kept in Leipzig, Germany
-Recorded poisons and poisonings: hemlock, aconite, opium, metals (arsenic, lead, copper, antimony)
Poisons from Aconite
-A plant poison in backyard
-highly toxic cardiotoxins and neurotoxins after ingestion or consumption
-Patients present predominantly with a
combination of neurological, cardiovascular, and
gastrointestinal features
-Treatment: amiodarone and flecainide
Classical period of the Greeks
-Ancient time
-Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle
-Gold and silver invented
-Hippocrates: Father of Medicine (concept of overdose
-Book of Job: the term of Toxicology comes from this, poison arrows
Roman Empire
-Ancient age
-19 greatest inventions: Roman numerals, surgical tools, sewage
system/sanitary management, water
supply, laws and orders …
-Codex: the first bound book for
Julius Caesar (100 BC – 44 BC)
Han Dynasty
-Ancient age
-Paper was invented in China
-Desire for immortality – Alchemy:
The 1st Emperor Qin Shi Huang
(259 BC - 210 BC) died of mercury
Alchemy
- The first metal toxicity case
-pills of immortality: lead, mercury, iron . . . - Metals, plant and animal toxins recognized and
recorded.
-Arsenic
King Mithridates Death
-100 BC Roman Republic’s enemies
-Ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus
-After assassination of his father in 120 BC,
he started regularly ingesting sub-lethal
doses of the same poison (mainly arsenic)
that killed his father and developed the
immunity to poisons
-The night before the battle, the assassin
added the dose to his wine. But next day on
the battle ground, the Romans were
astonished that he was alive. Mithridates
defeated Roman army again.
-After Pompey defeated him in Pontus in 66 BC, King
Mithridates fled back home trying to raise a new army.
* However, the local nobles rebelled against his rule.
* He was desperate and attempted suicide by poison; but
his attempt failed because of his immunity to poisons.
* … and his loyal guide had to hand him a sword…
“Lex Cornelia”, a Roman Law (82 BC)
-1st Law against Poisoning in Roman History
-In 82 BC, in an attempt to stem what was
becoming an epidemic of large-scale arsenic
poisonings, the Roman dictator and
constitutional reformer Lucius Cornelius Sulla
issued the Lex Cornelia, the first law in the
western civilization against poisoning.
* The Law aimed at the punishment of murderers,
poisoners, abortionists, human sacrifice, and
malign magicians.
Meideval Age
Medieval England:
-People were punished for food poisoning
-Seller of adulterated food> immersed in a dirty pond
-Violating butcher> paraded with face close to horse’s tail
Chinese Tang Dynasties
-Serve of toxic food> flogged or spanked 90 storkes
- Spoiled foor sold to another> banished 1 year
-Person died> hanged
Turkey or Ottoman Empire
-Baker selling adulterated bread →
had an ear cut off and nailed to his
doorpost
* Wine maker who adulterated wine
→ condemned to drink 6 quarts of
his own product (usually fatal)
Renaissance
-Art and science: : astronomy, physics, biology, and
anatomy …
-Paracelsus: father of toxicology
-Ellenbog recorded toxicity of mercury and lead exposures in goldsmithing (studies of these metals started)
Paracelsus
-Father of Toxicology
- He encouraged using experimental animals to study both
beneficial and toxic chemical effects.
* He advocated the use of inorganic salts, metals, and
minerals for medicinal purposes.
* To cure a disease caused by poisons, a substance of
similar nature but the opposite effect should be
administered, hence, the concept of antidote.
Mercury as a therapeutic drug for treatment of
syphilis
Therapeutic effect (Dose-Response relationship)
dose that will be most effective
Does-Response relationship: The intensity of a response to a given amount of chemicals
Paracelsus: “All substances are poisons; there is none
which is not a poison. The right dose
differentiates poison from a remedy.”
Time Course of Poisons in the Body
-The time course is how the body
processes a chemical via its
absorption, distribution, metabolism and
elimination (ADME).
Toxicodynamics
Science of studying drug / poison effects on human health
Toxicokinetics
study of the time course of the effects of a chemical on the body
