Stone and wood gave way in time to bronze and then to iron as materials for constructing these tools and weapons. In a unique difference from other animals, humans learned to construct tools and weapons that facilitated their survival. Personal survival depended on recognition and avoidance, so far as possible, of the dangerous categories. Humans learned from experience to classify things into categories of safe and harmful. The bite of the asp or adder could be fatal, whereas the bite of many other snakes was not. Some fruits, berries, and vegetation could be eaten with safety and to their benefit, whereas others caused illness or even death. It was in the very early period of prehistory that humans must have become aware of the phenomenon of toxicity. Their earliest tools and weapons were of wood and stone. They found their food among the plants, trees, animals, and fish in their immediate surroundings, their clothing in the skins of animals, and their shelter mainly in caves. Earliest human beings found themselves in environments that were at the same time helpful and hostile to their survival. The beginnings of toxicology, the knowledge or science of poisons, are prehistoric. Industrial Toxicology: Origins and Trends Eula Bingham, Ph.D., John Zapp, Ph.D., (deceased) 1 Introduction Industrial toxicology is a comparatively recent discipline, but its roots are shadowed in the mists of time.
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