Toxicology is the study of toxins and the associated research and treatment of poisoning. Here, the health-damaging effects that individual chemical substances have on living beings are meant in particular. Toxicology investigates the form of the effects, the extent of the damage and the interactions underlying the poisoning. This allows hazards to be better interpreted and potential risk to be better assessed. The specialty usually goes hand-in-hand with pharmacology, as research in these areas often overlaps.
What is toxicology?
Toxicology is the study of toxins and the related research and treatment of poisoning. The field of toxicology is based on the teachings of the researcher and physician Paracelsus, whose findings shaped the 16th century. He established that there are basically neither toxic nor non-toxic substances, but rather that the dose of a substance constitutes the toxic effect and only becomes a harmful substance in increased concentration. The substance itself can be both poison and non-toxic. Today’s research in toxicology also assumes that the concentration determines the degree of toxic effect and that the risk of actual poisoning is rather low. The exception to a higher risk is carcinogenic substances. These are referred to as genotoxic carcinogens. The same exception applies to mutagenic substances, so-called mutagens. Here, no precise limit value can be specified. The root word “toxon” actually comes from the Greek and is related to the poisoned arrow. Because of its rapid and deadly effect, the arrow was prepared with toxic plant poison or contaminated corpse poison, which could paralyze muscles, respiration or the heart or bring them to a complete standstill. Finally, in the 17th century, the doctrine of poisons aroused a particularly high level of interest, because at that time poison murders were increasingly committed, although the perpetrators often could not be caught, because there were not yet sufficient detection methods. The main poison of the time was arsenic. Poison murder became almost a kind of fashion. Murder with arsenic had a long tradition, reaching an inconceivable peak in the 19th century. Therefore, it became necessary to deal with poisoning. The then completely new research field of toxicology was born. Its founder was the chemist Mathieu Orfila. Due to the time, he was particularly interested in arsenic. The proof of arsenic in human blood was finally provided by James Marsh, who was also a chemist. Marsh’s sample, by which arsenic could be detected in the body, is named after him. Then, after the discovery of this method, the murders by arsenic soon stopped.
Treatments and therapies
The research field of toxicology mainly studies exposures to chemical substances and thus serves precautionary and protective measures in various fields. Medical professionals, in particular, can gain knowledge for treatments and better identify symptoms of poisoning because of its teachings. Whereas toxicology in its early days was primarily concerned with the recognition and treatment of acute symptoms of poisoning, nowadays the focus is more on the question of what harmful effects substances have when ingested at very low concentrations. The body’s exposure to foreign substances present in the air we breathe, in food, in drinking water or even in the soil is being researched in greater detail. Carcinogenic substances due to environmental influences, for example, need to be studied more intensively. These include dioxins, PCBs, particulate matter, diesel soot particles and hydrocarbons. Drugs are also tested for their side effects. Drugs are thoroughly tested in advance before they are approved for the market, and their effects are extensively tested in the case of new developments. This is done by animal testing, but, due to the critical evaluation of such tests, also by alternative methods, especially at the biochemical and molecular level. New tasks include, for example, the development of medicines or foodstuffs produced by means of genetic modifications or research into the effects of such organic genetic modifications on the human organism.Toxicology classifies all substances in terms of limit values and guidelines, and more precisely differentiates between mutagenic, carcinogenic and toxic to reproduction. Both risk assessment and intensive analysis of all mechanisms of action are an important task of this science, which is based on biological, physical, biochemical and medical data. Classical subfields of toxicology are clinical toxicology, which deals with the treatment of poisoning, and food toxicology, which serves to protect the public and investigates substances that are harmful to health, both naturally occurring and caused by humans. Similarly, there are areas dealing with industrial chemicals, consumer products, the living environment and the damage occurring there in water, soil, and air, and drug toxicology, which stands on its own.
Diagnosis and methods of investigation
Alternative medicine also includes, for example, homotoxicology. It is based on the theory of Hans-Heinrich Reckeweg, which states that diseases and their symptoms are due to poisons. The actual illness is thus only the reaction to internal or also external harmful substances. These can occur in food, the environment or in the metabolism itself and are called homotoxins. The form of the disease is expressed as homotoxicosis depending on the organism’s defenses and the duration of exposure to the toxin, whereby the body is confronted with the particular toxic phenomenon and attempts to fight or eliminate it. If the body’s defense system is successful, the person is healthy. If complications arise, he becomes ill. Then inflammations, diarrhea, vomiting, rash or similar symptoms appear. The therapy against it is detoxification of the body. For this purpose, preparations are used that are supposed to support the body’s self-healing process and stimulate the detoxification process. Such preparations are basically homeopathic.
