Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Summary- The chapter begins with a mention of the peculiarity of the periodic table and the various nearly unpredictable ways in which elements may react under diverse circumstances. The first element Kean makes a bit of is silver. He mentions that Roman generals had generally better health than other memeber of the military because they dined on silver plates. Pioneer families in America would travel with a silver coin in their milk to keep it from spoiling. Science would later prove that both silver and copper have antiseptic effects. Copper is used in infrastructure due to its self-sterilizing nature. Kean talks about vanadium, its nature as a spermicide, and its side effect of mysteriously raising and lowering blood glucose levels (causing it to be marketed online as a cure for diabetes). Kean also talks about gadolinium and its potential as a cancer treatment.
     Kean tells about a man named Stan Jones, who ran for the US Senate seat in 2002 and again in 2006. He had blue skin, which stemmed from an experiment fueled by his unshakeable faith in silver's power as an antibiotic. He had been trying to boost the strength of his immune system in preparation for the expected apocalyptic event in 2000. Even after he developed argyria, a condition in which exposure to silver causes a human's skin to turn blue, he still believed strongly in the antiseptic capabilities of silver. Kean goes on to explain the "handedness" of elements and "chirality." He later talks about a man named Gerhard Domagk, who is attributed with making a major step forward in pharmaceuticals. He developed a vaccine from an industrial red dye to his fever-stricken daughter, who appeared to get worse right after, and suddenly recovered three years later. Kean explains how important a single sulfur atom is to the dye, prontosil. William Knowles would be immortalized for using rhodium to create L-dopa, which had extremely positive effect on patients with Parkinson's disease.
      I liked the narrative style of Kean's writing that is akin to a timeline of chemistry on the planet. It was interesting to see that some medicines aren't actually medicines, and are marketed as something else because the company selling it is oblivious to its medical potential. I learned that "chirality" is crucial to a complete understanding of how and why an element or substance will behave in a specific environment, or how well it may perform a task. I would tell my imaginary bae that only left-handed L-dopa gave the intended result, which proves my previous statement, but also raised questions as to exactly how chirality works.