Oral: Chen Jianren (Professor, Institute of Epidemiology, National Taiwan University, Academician of Academia Sinica)｜Organization: Pang Zhongpei Arsenic is actually ubiquitous in nature, and one of its compounds is arsenic, which was often used as a poison in ancient times. However, Chinese people's impression of arsenic should be obtained from black foot disease. In the late 1950s, black foot disease began to appear in Beimen, Budai, Xuejia and Yizhu on the southwestern coast of Taiwan.
Black foot disease has no symptoms at first, only because of poor blood circulation at the end of the limbs, there is a cold, numb feeling at the ends photo background removing of the hands and feet, and the fingertips and toes turn white when the hands and feet are raised for a while. In addition, if the hands and feet of ordinary people touch something sharp or hot, they will quickly retract; however, because the peripheral nerves at the ends of the hands and feet are damaged, people with black feet disease lack this reflex action, making the ends of the limbs particularly vulnerable to injury and Ulcers occur. In general, ulcers usually heal quickly, but in people with black feet, the ulcers are not easy to heal, and they will slowly enlarge, turn into black gangrene, and then continue to spread upward.
The locals call the black foot disease "Ugan Snake", which is a very vivid name. "Black" refers to the color of gangrene; "Dry" means that the gangrene does not bleed; "Snake" means that the gangrene will develop from The ends of the limbs extend upwards. Due to the extreme pain in the affected area, some people even commit suicide by taking medicine because they can't stand it. The clinical changes of black foot disease are similar to those of peripheral vascular disease in the late stage of diabetes. Its pathological changes include "thrombotic vasculitis embolism" and "arteriosclerotic embolism", which cause the blood to not flow and cause the limbs to appear black and blue necrosis. At that time, the only treatment for this disease was amputation, so Pastor Sun Lilian, Dr. Xie Wei and Dr. Wang Jinhe worked together to provide free amputation for local patients.