Toxicology is the science of poisons and the study of adverse effects of
chemical agents upon living organisms. The root of the word “toxic” is
taken from the Latin word toxicus (meaning poisonous), which is itself
derived from the ancient Greek word toxikon, a term used to describe poisons
into which arrows were dipped (arrow poisons). Thus, assessing the
biological effects of toxic chemical species (i.e. toxins) is the central
theme and focus in toxicology, whether these are rather “small” (small
molecules) or “macro” (macromolecules such as proteins and other biomolecules),
or being synthesized in a chemical laboratory or in “mother
nature’s lab”.
As a medical discipline, toxicology developed over millennia from the
very early observations and the reclamation of both healing and adverse
properties of plants, animals and corresponding extracts or preparations
made thereof. During the last decades, toxicology has made rapid and
great strides in moving forward from more or less descriptive ground
fields towards a molecular, mechanism-based scientific discipline. While
toxicology was considered the smaller sibling of an unlike pair for long
periods in more recent times in modern ages till at least the mid-20th century,
these recent developments fostered the emancipation from its
greater sibling, pharmacology, and led to the rise of a highly interactive
and independent field of research stimulated and strengthened by all natural
sciences and human medicine. This interplay of many disciplines is
what makes the work on biological effects of toxic substances interesting
and exciting but – at the same time – also rather difficult and complex.