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Toxicology is a scientific discipline, superimposed by biology, chemistry, pharmacology, and medicine, that involves the study of the adverse effects of chemicals on living organisms and the practice of identifying and treating exposure to poisons and toxic substances. The relationship between intake levels and effects on exposed animals is of high importance in toxicology. Factors affecting chemical toxicity include dose, duration of exposure (whether acute or chronic), route of exposure, species, age, sex, and environment. Toxicologists specialize in poisons and the action of poisons. There is a movement for evidence-based toxicology as part of a larger movement toward evidence-based practice. Poisoning is currently contributing to the field of cancer research, since some poisons can be used as drugs to kill tumor cells. A prime example of this is ribosome inactivating protein, which is being tested in the treatment of leukemia.
Dioscrides, a Greek physician at the court of the Roman emperor Nero, made the first attempt to classify plants according to their poisonous and medicinal effects. Ibn Wahshiyyah wrote a book on poisons in the 9th or 10th century. This was followed by Khagendra Mani Darpan in 1360.
Mathieu Orfila, considered the modern father of toxicology, gave the first formal treatment to the general public in 1813 in his book ‘Treatée des Poisons’, also known as Toxicology General.
Jean Stauss was the first person to successfully isolate plant toxins from human tissue in 1850. This allowed him to identify the use of nicotine as a poison in the Beaucarmé murder case and provided the evidence needed to convict Count Hippolyte Wissart de Beaucarmé of Belgium of murdering his brother-in-law.
