Everything is poison;
there is not a thing that is not poison and it only depends on the dosage
which separates safe from toxic! The founder of toxicology was a Spanish
physician, named Orifila who showed the effects of poison on organs and their
associated tissue damage. Toxicology, the study of adverse effects of
chemical, physical or biological agents on living organisms and the ecosystem,
is the “science of poisons”. It also includes the prevention and treating of
such adverse effects. This science is an ever-evolving medical science and our
understanding of it is also very minimal. Knowledge of these adverse effects
of toxic agents in the body is progressing with medical knowledge.
The environment is filled
with poisons, toxins, medications, nutrients and pollutants which affect the
health of individuals, families, pets, and communities. In people, they can
cause damage resulting in asthma, cancer, reproductive failures, acute death
or chronic degenerative diseases.
Xenobiotics, the condition of
foreign substances taken
into the body, produce toxic effects, but can also be beneficial as in the
case of pharmaceuticals. In some cases, high doses of certain toxins in the
body can lead to death, but in other cases, smaller doses may be harmless or
even beneficial. This is a major concept in toxicology, the dose-response
relationship. Scientists who study and determine the effects of toxicology are
called toxicologists.
Toxicology becomes selective in conditions where antibiotics are virtually
nontoxic to humans but are selectively toxic to microorganisms. Insecticide is
lethal for insects but is relatively nontoxic to animals. Age can be an
important factor in the effects of toxins on the body.
Toxicology and
pharmacology are interlinked but toxicology specializes in the analysis of the
harmful effects of drugs and other chemicals on biological systems.
Toxicologists have been called upon to study, and provide information about
the potentially toxic effects of other chemicals to which we are exposed
either deliberately or inadvertently. Areas of future toxicology programs
include neurotoxicology; immunotoxicology; osteotoxicology; carcinogenesis;
and molecular, pulmonary, reproductive and developmental toxicology.
