ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a detailed discussion on the occurrence and production, uses, chemical and physical properties, exposure and exposure limits, toxicokinetics, and effects of thallium in humans. The crustal abundance of thallium is largely due to these minerals in clays, soils, and granites. Thallium sulfide is found in widely varying amounts in sphalerite, galena, pyrite, and other sulfide mineral deposits. The use of thallium acetate as a cosmetic depilatory around 1930, as well as its use for about 50 years as a therapeutic epilant in the treatment of fungal scalp infections, was often accompanied by severe poisonings and fatalities. Biota in thallium-contaminated areas currently have thallium levels that could be high enough to cause toxic symptoms if they constituted the entire diet of a mammal. The effects of thallium in humans include information on acute toxicity, chronic toxicity, biochemistry, specific organs and systems, teratogenicity, mutagenicity, and carcinogenicity.
