Activated Charcoal

 

Wood charcoal is the most traditional form of charcoal. It is made by heating wood in low oxygen so that the wood does not burn completely but turns into carbon-rich material. This process is called pyrolysis. 

 

 

 

Wood → heated without air → water + gases removed → charcoal remains

This process is called  Pyrolysis

During pyrolysis:

• Water evaporates
• Volatile gases leave
• Carbon remains → charcoal 

 

 

 

France Leads The Way To Activated Charcoal 

 

 

 

The first reported use of charcoal as an antidote occurred in 1811, when the French chemist Michel Bertrand reportedly ingested charcoal with 5 g of arsenic trioxide. 

 

In 1852, Touéry showed no ill effects after consuming a large dose of strychnine with charcoal before sceptical colleagues of the French Academy of Medicine  

 

 

 

 Theory To Practice

 

Universal Antidote  

 

 

 

 

 

Current Events

 

World Wood Day 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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World Down Syndrome Day

John Langdon Down (1866)

• English physician working at Royal Earlswood Asylum
• Published a paper in 1866 describing a group of children with similar physical features and intellectual disability.
• He called the condition “Mongolian idiocy” (obsolete and offensive term used at the time).
• This was the first clinical description of Down syndrome.

 

The first scientific description of Down syndrome was published by John Langdon Down in 1866. 

                                                    CLASSIFICATION OF IDIOTS 

 

 

 

Jérôme Lejeune

• Worked in Paris with Marthe Gautier and Raymond Turpin
• Discovered that affected individuals have 47 chromosomes instead of 46.
• Identified extra chromosome 21 → Trisomy 21

 

 

 

This was one of the first times a human disease was linked to a chromosomal abnormality. 

 

 

 

 

                                                                            Current Events

 

 

 

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Cardamyst: First Self-Administered Antiarrhythmic Nasal Spray, US FDA (Dec 2025)

 

                                                 Paroxysmal Supraventricular Tachycardia 

Etripamil is a short-acting L-type calcium channel blocker developed for self-treatment of paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia (PSVT).

Researchers designed etripamil as a verapamil-like molecule but with:

• faster metabolism

• intranasal delivery

• minimal systemic exposure

                                

 

 

 

 

 

Mechanism Of Action

 First Self-Administered Anti arrhythmic Nasal Spray  

 

US FDA (Dec 2025) 

 

Etripamil blocks L-type calcium channels in the AV node, which:

• Slows AV nodal conduction

• Interrupts re-entry circuits

• Restores normal sinus rhythm

   

   
   

   

   

   

   

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Lemon Sign And Banana Sign

 

Types Of Brain Hemorrhage

 

 

 

 Epidural Hematoma =  Lemon

 

Subdural Hematoma = Banana

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Epidural Hematoma = Lemon Sign

 

 

 

 

 

Subdural Hematoma = Banana Sign 

 

 

 

 

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Rice: The Beginning On The Story Of Vitamins

Story Of Rice

 

Archaeological evidence shows rice was cultivated in the Yangtze River valley around 8000–9000 years ago. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rice To Vitamin Theory 

 

 

 

                                                  Casimir Funk (1912) – vitamin theory

Casimir Funk (1884–1967) was a Polish biochemist known as the "father of vitamins" who in 1911–1912 isolated a nutrient from rice bran that cured beriberi, which he identified as a "vitamine" (later Vitamin B1/thiamine). 

He coined the term "vitamine" and proposed that specific deficiency diseases were caused by lack of these essential micronutrients 

• Isolated anti-beriberi factor from rice polishings
• Proposed the term vitamine
• Suggested diseases like beriberi are due to missing nutrients

 

First Vitamin From Rice 

 

 

 

 

 

Thiamine Deficiency And Beri Beri

 

 Nobel Prize In Medicine, 1929

Christiaan Eijkman worked in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia).

Important experiment:

• Chickens fed polished rice → paralysis
• Chickens fed unpolished rice → recovered

He concluded:

• Rice bran contained a protective substance

This discovery led to the idea of deficiency diseases.

Eijkman received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thiamine And Krebs Cycle 

 

Thiamine (vitamin B1) is essential for the Krebs cycle (TCA cycle) because it is required for key enzyme reactions that allow carbohydrates to be converted into energy.

Thiamine works in the body as thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP), a coenzyme needed for oxidative decarboxylation reactions.

 

 

 

Brain depends on glucose → needs Krebs cycle → needs thiamine.

Deficiency → ↓ ATP → neuronal injury

Diseases:

• Wernicke encephalopathy

• Korsakoff syndrome

• Beriberi

   

   
   
   
   
   
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