Environment and Our Health
It is widely known that the state of our environment affects us in many ways. Minerals and rocks are going to have some impact on human and animal populations because that is what the earth is composed of. Medical geology brings professionals from both the medicine field and the geology field to help us understand this relationship. There are two priorities that have been established within the medical geology field, "(1) the study of trace elements, especially their bioavailability and (2) a need to establish baseline, or background levels of contaminants/ xenobiotics/ potentially harmful but naturally occurring materials in water, soil, air, food, and animal tissue." The elements and minerals in the land effect people and animals immensely especially when there is a close relationship between the two. Those who depend heavily on the land are faced with one of two problems. First, those who live in places such as Maputaland, South Africa are exposed to heavily impoverished soils which result in a number of diseases caused by mineral imbalances. Secondly, those in areas such as India and Bangladesh are often exposed to an excess of elements in the land resulting in mineral toxicity. We do of course need some naturally occurring elements however most can be extremely detrimental to our health. There is a direct link between health and the earth because we ingest and breath in all of these chemicals and for the most part we do it unknowingly.
Read more about this topic: Medical Geology
Famous quotes containing the words environment and, environment and/or health:
“Maturity involves being honest and true to oneself, making decisions based on a conscious internal process, assuming responsibility for one’s decisions, having healthy relationships with others and developing one’s own true gifts. It involves thinking about one’s environment and deciding what one will and won’t accept.”
—Mary Pipher (20th century)
“People between twenty and forty are not sympathetic. The child has the capacity to do but it can’t know. It only knows when it is no longer able to do—after forty. Between twenty and forty the will of the child to do gets stronger, more dangerous, but it has not begun to learn to know yet. Since his capacity to do is forced into channels of evil through environment and pressures, man is strong before he is moral. The world’s anguish is caused by people between twenty and forty.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“At last I feel the equal of my parents. Knowing you are going to have a child is like extending yourself in the world, setting up a tent and saying “Here I am, I am important.” Now that I’m going to have a child it’s like the balance is even. My hand is as rich as theirs, maybe for the first time. I am no longer just a child.”
—Anonymous Father. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 5 (1978)