The Dose Makes the Poison
A Plain-Language Guide to Toxicology
by Patricia Frank
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The Dose Makes The Poison
What Are Chemicals?
The word chemical has become a dirty word in our modern American vocabulary. Our public media provide us daily with advice or warnings about the presence of chemicals in our food, air, and water and the harm they are doing to us and the world we live in. As a result, the word chemical conjures up visions of damage, debility, disease, and death in the minds of many people. In order to understand the threats posed by chemicals — a prerequisite to wisely protecting ourselves and our environment from their adverse effects — we must clarify or reform our concept of chemical.
ATOMS AND MOLECULES
All matter is composed of chemical elements. An individual unit of an element is called an atom. Atoms are the basic building blocks for all substances. Approximately 90 different kinds of stable elements are found in nature. Examples of elements are hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, gold, and silver. A complete listing of all of the elements, including those that are unstable (radioactive), can be found in any good dictionary. The periodic table gives detailed information about all the elements and the relationships among them. A multicolored diagram of the periodic table and an explanation of how this table is constructed can be found at the Los Alamos National Laboratory Web site (http.//periodic.lanl.gov) or the University of Sheffield Web site ( www.webelements.com ). Appendix A describes the concept of Avogadro’ s number and molecular weights for those who might be interested.
When two or more atoms (usually of different elements) are linked together by chemical bonding, they form units called molecules. A substance composed of molecules all of the same kind is called a compound. Water, salt, and sugar are examples of compounds. The number of different kinds of molecules that can be formed by the combination of from two to many thousands of atoms, from more than 90 different elements, is astronomical. Figure 1 - 1 shows the structures of a very simple and a very complex molecule. All substances are composed of chemical and physical combinations of atoms (elements) and molecules (compounds). Thus, everything in our physical world is chemical — the food we eat, the water we drink, the clothes we wear, the medicines we take, the cosmetics we use, the plants in our garden, our furniture, our homes, our automobiles, and even ourselves. Our entire physical world is composed of chemicals.
The Dose Makes the Poison: A Plain Language Guide to Toxicology, Third Edition. By Patricia Frank and M. Alice Ottoboni
© 2011 Patricia Frank and M. Alice Ottoboni. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
The Dose Makes the Poison
Some chemical elements and compounds have adverse effects on organisms. Toxicology is the study of symptoms, mechanisms, treatments, and detection of poisons, and in The Dose Makes the Poison, Third Edition, Patricia Frank and M. Alice Ottoboni discuss the basics and practice of this field.
As the authors explain, the toxic effects of a given chemical depend on dose, frequency of exposure, and the route by which a chemical enters the body. After a review of what chemicals are, we learn about their various harmful properties: from combustibility to radioactivity. Following a brief history of toxicology, we look at ways of measuring toxic effects, including lethal dose. This is followed by a section showing how various agents can induce genetic mutations and cancer, and another showing how toxins impact reproduction. In addition to discussions of epidemiology and risk, the book includes case studies. These cover, for example, the impact of dioxins on the population of Seveso, Italy; the effect of PCBs, which contaminated a brand of rice oil in Japan; the aftermath of the Bophal, India, disaster in 1984; and the effects of DDT on animal populations.
This third edition of the book includes descriptions of a wide range of drugs, food additives, cosmetics, and other types of compounds that we are exposed to on a daily basis. These include in-depth analyses of the composition and effects of such substances as Fen-Phen, Vioxx®, and Thalidomide, as well as metals, lead, cadmium, zinc, plastics, phthalates, and bisphenyl A (BPA). Also new to this edition are informed and insightful discussions of nanoparticulate toxicants, secondhand smoke, food contamination, and lead in toys.
In easy-to-understand language, The Dose Makes the Poison, Third Edition, describes the fundamentals of a vitally important field.
Softcover : 280 pages
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ( March 07, 2011 )
Item #: 13-369740
ISBN: 9780470381120
Product Dimensions: 6.125 x 9.25 inches
Product Weight: 16.0 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Informative but dry. 
August 26, 2011
I was looking forward to this book. I thought it would have interesting stories about poison. Actually, its like a text book. The presentation is very dry, I keep waiting for something exciting to come up but it never does. I'm sorry I bought it.
Reviewer: Charles
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