What is TOXICOLOGY?

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 Usually, when I hear the word "toxicology", this photo above comes to my mind first. First, I wanna define what toxicology means in my own understanding. As we all know, logos means "study of", so I assume that toxicology is actually study of toxins. This then can include the its effects to living organisms. 

Chemicals, these are one of the things a medical technologist has to deal with. As a medical technologist, I usually get in contact with different types of chemicals. They differ in the effects they may give. For me, toxicology is very important especially for a medtech like me. If not because of toxicology, we may not know how to properly handle chemicals. And if worst situations will occur, like accidentally for example, toxicology has provided some guidelines that definitely could help. 

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I was reminded once with a story I may connect to toxicology. Once, I heard a news about someone who tried to killed himself by drinking poison. It caught my attention because this person was just a minor (more or less 15 years old) and for me, his problem wasn't really heavy. It was just because he failed on something in school. His mom saw her after a few minutes. But because she was not knowledgeable about what she need to do, his son died. After this incident, someone who is knowledgeable about toxicology was asked if what she could have done to save her son. She explained it and said that if she knew what to do, her son would have been alive up to now. It really struck me because I suddenly realized the importance of toxicology.