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:
“As there is a use in medicine for poisons, so the world cannot move without rogues.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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“The only medicine for suffering, crime, and all the other woes of mankind, is wisdom.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)