History of Toxicology and Environmental Health by Wexler Philip;

History of Toxicology and Environmental Health by Wexler Philip;

Author:Wexler, Philip; [Wexler, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Elsevier Science & Technology
Published: 2014-04-15T00:00:00+00:00


This means that the method for the proper identification of a specific toxin was differential, consisting of grouping together all the substances with a similar or identical action, comparing their symptoms, and finally identifying exclusive symptoms, leading to a precise identification of the poison. Therapy was administered on that basis.

As a consequence of the lack of understanding of the pathological mechanisms, therapies were limited to treating the symptoms rather than the causes, something that drastically reduced their efficacy in spite of their sheer number and great variety. Nevertheless, in the case of subacute intoxication, it is highly probable that therapies may have compensated for the actions of the toxic agents during the crisis phase, allowing the patients to survive.

Regarding the period when this system was created, we noticed that it cannot be traced in any form to the vast collections of treatises ascribed to Hippocrates, which span between the fifth century BCE and the second century CE. It can be recognized, though only partially, in the De materia medica of Dioscorides (first century CE), since the work, dealing with materia medica specifically, does not include considerations of the pathologies that may have been generated by botanicals. However, the grouping of materia medica by action (and, in our specific case, by pathological action) is present in the work. In the second and early third centuries, this system was no longer present as such in the treatise De venenis, as the substances were grouped by natural kingdoms and each one is listed in alphabetical order according to the Greek name. All the information linked with the grouping, therefore, is lost. Nevertheless, the general principle of the system that we have reconstructed through the pseudo-Dioscoridean De venenis (that is, the necessity of a specific treatment based on the identification of relevant symptoms), can be found in a scattered form in Galen’s many works. It thus seems that the development of a toxicological method with a theoretical system accounting for the written works that have come to us dates back to the first century CE, and probably somewhat earlier, because the achievements of the first century CE may have caused the disappearances of their predecessors.

Extant documentation includes fragments or traces of works on toxicological matters by physicians of the Alexandrian school during the third century BCE. Nevertheless, judging from the scanty remains, such works seem to have been limited to anatomo-pathological analysis, rather than to a theorization about a body of facts observed by experience. Furthermore, during the second century BCE, the work of Nicander, though it demonstrates good knowledge of the activity of poisons, neither includes a classification nor, on this basis, elements of differential diagnosis as in the pseudo-Dioscoridean treatise De venenis. It is reasonable to speculate that the system of toxicology presented above and defined here as classical toxicology dates back to the period between the fading of the medical school of Alexandria and the zenith of Greek medicine in the first century of the Roman Empire–that is to say, between the first century BCE and the end of the first century CE.



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