Medical Toxicology of Natural Substances: Foods, Fungi, Medicinal Herbs, Plants, and Venomous Animals

Donald G. Barceloux

Nov 2008 · John Wiley & Sons

About this ebook

Interest and information in the field of medical toxicology has grown rapidly, but there has never been a concise, authoritative reference focused on the subjects of natural substances, chemical and physical toxins, drugs of abuse, and pharmaceutical overdoses. Medical Toxicology of Natural Substances finally gives you an easily accessible resource for vital toxicological information on foods, plants, and animals in key areas in the natural environment.

Ratings and reviews

This book is of great interest to me as a person diagnosed with hypersensitivity pneumonitis. Specifically, when I breathe in spores from a specific slimy black mold found in wet plywood, my lungs produce fibers that reduce my O2 levels to the 60 and 70 percentage rates. I have had coma-induced treatment in an ICU in 2009. I am told by a woman's medicine specialist from India that when gyromitrin is inhaled, the body's hydrolysis process turns it into monomethyl hydrazine, a toxin used in the aerospace industry to give an extra thrust to the Space Shuttle. OSHA protocols for MMH exposure include administration of Prednisone. This is the only intervention in three exposures that has prevented my death. I am concerned that a specific Basidiospore (possibly one of the two thousand unclassified Basidiospores) embeds in wet plywood and ingests the formaldehyde glue binders in plywood. When this Basidiospore blossoms in the spring, its spores contain gyromitrin. I have also read a theory that the growing use of second and third growth timber in plywood manufacture, has increased plywood's susceptibility to black mold infestation. I am very happy to see that the medical community is gradually becoming aware of this toxicity issue rather than approaching treatment interventions from an allergy perspective as was originally done in my own case. I cannot be the only person in the world who is plagued with this condition. My other interest in this issue is the extent to which children are regularly harmed in mold infested buildings. Could the increase in Autism rates be related to ingestion of gyromitrin / MMH?

About the author

Dr. Donald G. Barceloux is presently a Staff Physician in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Pomona Valley Community Hospital. He is also a teacher at UCLA, an active consultant on medical toxicology, and a fellow at the American Academy of Clinical Toxicology, American College of Medical Toxicology, and the American College of Emergency Medicine. In addition, he has written an array of papers and co-authored a medical toxicology reference book.