ABSTRACT
The incidents of arsenic (As) contamination in groundwater and the consequent sufferings of people from chronic As toxicity resulting from drinking the contaminated water from West Bengal, India and Bangladesh are well documented. The clinical manifestations are many, but the most commonly observed symptoms that identify people suffering from chronic arsenic poisoning are arsenical skin lesions. In severe cases, gangrene in limbs and malignant neoplasms are also observed. Major cases of groundwater arsenic contamination have occurred in Taiwan (Lu, 1990); Antofagasta in Chile (Borgono and Greiber, 1971); Mexico (Cebrian et al., 1983), and Argentina (Astolfi et al., 1981). Other incidents involving smaller population groups have been reported from Poland (Geyer, 1898); Minnesota,USA (Feinglass, 1973); Ontario, Canada (Wyllie 1973); Nova Scotia, Canada (Grantham and Jones, 1977); Nakajo, Japan (Terade et al., 1960), Millard County, Utah, USA (Southwick et al., 1983); Lane County, Oregon, USA (Morton et al., 1976); Lassen County, California, USA (Goldsmith et al., 1972), and Fairbanks, Alaska, (Harrington et al., 1978). The principal finding in most of these incidents was the close relationship between the prevalence of cutaneous lesions and the exposure to drinking
water containing high levels of As. The comparative results of clinical findings as reported from chronic As poisoning from drinking Ascontaminated water show the presence of almost all the stages of arsenical clinical manifestations (Hotta, 1989).
