This article is written to improve our understanding of toxics that come in contact with Dental Staff and their patients. We have poisoned our Environment Everyday, we, in a personal and collective way, may have realized that there are many among us who have health situations of which our grandparents had never heard. Skin allergies, asthma, higher cancer rates. We all have known someone who has had some difficulties with pregnancy. Many of the problems that we are encountering today did not exist before the widespread use of DDT, PCB's and NPE's.
Toxicology is the study of poisons.
One of the first compounds regarded as a poison was arsenic. It was the chief agent of poisoning crimes from the middle ages right up to the 20th century. In 1849, a toxicology program was begun at the University of Ghent in Belgium as a small part of pharmacy and chemistry studies. Since WW2 with the explosion of synthetic materials such as pesticides and detergents, it has necessarily grown as a scientific endeavour and is now its own discipline. Although the concept has been around for a century, it is not a very realistic representation as few people will ingest a large quantity of a toxic substance, no matter how hungry they may be.