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Medicine
Published in Seema Khan, Get Through, 2020
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Metallic poisons *
Published in Bev-Lorraine True, Robert H. Dreisbach, Dreisbach’s HANDBOOK of POISONING, 2001
Bev-Lorraine True, Robert H. Dreisbach
The fatal dose of mercuric salts such as mercuric chloride (corrosive sublimate) is 1 g. Ingested metallic mercury is ordinarily not toxic, since it is not absorbed. However, metallic mercury retained in the lung or injected intravenously can produce toxicity, although often it does not. Mercury vapor is in the monatomic state and is lipophilic. It is transferred to brain cells, where it is oxidized to Hg2+ to produce toxic effects. Inhaled mercury vapor causes acute pneumonitis. Mercurous chloride, ammoniated mercury, mercury protoiodide, and organic antiseptic mercurials such as acetomeroctol, merbromin, mercocresol, nitromersol, phenylmercuric salts and esters, and thimerosal (Merthiolate) are not likely to cause acute poisoning because they are poorly absorbed. The single fatal dose of these compounds is 2–4 times the fatal dose of soluble inorganic mercury salts. The mercurial diuretics (mersalyl, meralluride, mercurophylline, mercumatilin, mercaptomerin, chlormerodrin, and merethoxylline) are almost as toxic as mercuric chloride in experimental animals when mercury content is compared. The exposure limit for mercury or mercury compounds is 0.05 mg/m3 as mercury. Alkyl mercury compounds such as methyl mercury chloride, methyl mercury cyanide, methyl mercury hydroxide, methyl mercury pentachlorophenate, methyl mercury toluene sulfonate, ethyl mercury chloride (Ceresan), ethyl mercury phosphate, and ethyl mercury toluene sulfonate are more toxic than mercuric chloride, and the exposure limit is 0.01 mg of mercury per cubic meter. Other organic mercury compounds, such as hydroxymercuriphenol and cyanomethyl-mercuri-guanidine, are as toxic as an equivalent amount of mercury in mercuric chloride.
Did poisoning play a role in Napoleon’s death? A systematic review
Published in Clinical Toxicology, 2021
Daniela Marchetti, Francesca Cittadini, Nadia De Giovanni
The modern analytical investigation detected other elements than As in Napoleon’s hair with evidence of high homogeneous levels of Sb [9,19,22]; Kintz detected Hg and Pb [22]. Physicians who attended Napoleon the days before death were reported to have administered toxic substances as calomel or tartar emetic. In detail, a quarter of a grain of tartar emetic with abundant vomiting (22–24 March); calomel followed by gastric bleeding (28 April); 10 grains (600 mg) of the calomel on the afternoon of 3 May (5.30 pm) induced copious stools with the appearance of tar about thirty minutes before midnight [4,6,10,14,26,30]. Forshufvud [50] affirmed that the administration of mercurial laxative calomel with orgeat, an orange-flavoured drink containing the oil of bitter almonds [51], produced a soluble, toxic and corrosive mercury cyanide [30]. Thus, the course of clinical symptoms the days before death is not comparable with bleeding solely or nearly completely to a gastric wall ulceration due to cancer.
GOLD: human exposure and update on toxic risks
Published in Critical Reviews in Toxicology, 2018
Extraction and purification of gold is by –Amalgamation with mercuryCyanide process (MacArthur- Forrest Process)Floatation procedures (especially for telluride ores) (Zhang et al. 2010)Chlorination process (Miller process)Electrolytic process (Wohlwill process).
Advances in detection of hazardous organophosphorus compounds using organophosphorus hydrolase based biosensors
Published in Critical Reviews in Toxicology, 2019
Monika Jain, Priyanka Yadav, Abhijeet Joshi, Prashant Kodgire
In recent times, increasing population has led to higher demand for the food supplies, thus necessitating increased yield from the existing arable land, and expanding the types and quantity of agricultural produce. A direct consequence of the massive agricultural expansion is increased use of pesticides in order to enhance the productivity of the crops. Incidentally, over 5.6 billion pounds of pesticides are used globally every year (Donaldson et al. 1997). The most well-known commercial pesticides are classified broadly into three categories: organochlorines, carbamates, and organophosphates. Of these, organophosphates – also called phosphotriesters due to the presence of three phosphodiester bonds (Figure 1) (Barr et al. 2004), are of substantial interest due to their low-cost of synthesis and high efficacy. Strikingly, OP-based compounds today constitute anywhere between 33% of available pesticides in the developed countries and 50–60% in the developing countries (Atwood and Paisley-Jones 2017). Incidentally, trace amount of these compounds exhibit toxicity when absorbed through the skin, ingested or inhaled. In fact, World Health Organization reports show that around 200 000 people suffer annually from pesticide-related poisoning due to the direct or indirect exposure to organophosphorus compounds (OPs) (Theriot and Grunden 2011). For researchers in medical and environmental sciences, the use of OPs has been of a particular concern due to its lower biodegradability compared to the newer pesticides, as well as their tendency to block the active site of important enzymes in neurons, such as acetylcholinesterase (AChE), which breaks down and removes acetylcholine from the nerve synapse. The inability to break down acetylcholine results in neurological problems, such as convulsions, tremors, and even death (Zimmer et al. 1998). Although the OP poisoning is treatable using a combination of atropine and pralidoxime (Eddleston et al. 2008), such medication has several side effects (Headley 1982) and is not as effective in patients with prolonged exposure due to a phenomenon known as the aging effect, in which a non-enzymatic loss of alkyl chain from the phosphate group in the OP compound renders the inhibited/blocked AChE into a non-reactivatable form (Masson et al. 2010). Strikingly, poisoning by the OPs has a high rate of mortality (Eddleston 2000) that exceeds the normal expectations for exposure to toxic chemicals, such as mercury, cyanide, and cadmium. These higher mortality rates are a cause of concern for healthcare professionals to this day (Muley et al. 2014), necessitating measures to facilitate a convenient and accurate detection of OPs in human samples as well as environment.