Geographical Toxicology

Abstract

I am writing this to convince myself that the country I live in, its altitude, its winds, and its soil have some determinant influence on the likelihood that I may suffer from a toxic drug reaction. Had I not experienced the surprising amplification of ethanol neurotoxicity on the Jungfraujoch (3454 m), I would seriously question that geography had anything to do with drug toxicity. But geographical toxicology should not only concern itself with altitude and latitude, geology, and meteorology. It must also investigate the circumstances under which drugs are predominantly used in a certain country, the prescribing habits of its physicians and nutrition of its inhabitants, environmental toxins and specific diseases which are more common in a particular part of the earth. These influences must be distinguished from racial factors, genetically determined peculiarities of metabolism and disposition of the indigenous population. This is often difficult to do, unless large segments of the population have emigrated to other lands, have stayed there reasonably close together and can be investigated properly.