ABSTRACT
If environmental health is concerned with the impact of environmental stressors on human health it is necessary to understand basic physiology and anatomy. This chapter examines some of the relevant aspects of physiology, but also looks at the effects of some of the stressors from toxins to radiation of various forms (but as other chapters address this, here they are introduced only). Toxicology is a topic often overlooked and so in Section 2 of this chapter the aim is to summarise toxicology,
how the source – pathway – receptor concept facilitates to environmental health practice in understanding toxicological hazards and to show how toxicology and environmental health protection are used in incident response. Wherever possible additional sources of information are provided. This chapter also deals with infectious or communicable diseases which are more commonly considered to be part of the environmental health function as traditionally environmental health origins lie in dealing with infectious diseases.
