Medicine
In medical usage, heavy metals are loosely defined and include all toxic metals irrespective of their atomic weight: "heavy metal poisoning" can possibly include excessive amounts of iron, manganese, aluminium, mercury, cadmium, or beryllium (the fourth lightest element) or such a semimetal as arsenic. This definition excludes bismuth, the densest of approximately stable elements, because of its low toxicity.
Minamata disease results from mercury poisoning, and itai-itai disease from cadmium poisoning.
Read more about this topic: Heavy Metal (chemistry)
Famous quotes containing the word medicine:
“God isn’t compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness. You must make your choice. Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“The only medicine for suffering, crime, and all the other woes of mankind, is wisdom.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“After you eat always take a walk, and you’ll never have to go to a medicine shop.”
—Chinese proverb.
Rhyme.