Teeth antimony

Elements are incorporated into teeth from the diet or by inhalation. The figure shows trace element profiles measured by laser ablation—plasma ionization-mass spectrometry of the dentine of teeth from a modem person and one who lived in Scandinavia about a.d. 1800. The contrast is striking. The old tooth contains significant amounts of tin and bismuth, which are nearly absent in the modern tooth. The old tooth contains more lead and antimony than the modem tooth. Tin and lead are constituents of pewter, which was used for cooking vessels and utensils. Bismuth and antimony also might come from pewter. 

Viral transformation of Syrian hamster embryo cells has also been found to be facilitated by trivalent antimony compounds (Fowler and Goering 1991). In workers at antimony smelters, an orange-red to yellowish brown discoloration of the tooth surface ( antimony teeth ) has been observed (Bencze 1994). In 1989, attention was drawn to the possible role of antimony in the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) (Richardson 1990). Here, it was postulated that antimony, which was present as a fire retardant in polyvinyl cot mattresses, might be converted by certain molds into tri-... 

The danger of pneumoconiosis is significantly increased at those places of work where the antimony trioxide particle size is below 3 pm [39]. The most frequent expressions, however, are liver changes, kidney complaints, and positive gastrointestinal findings [40]. Sixty percent of all antimony smelters had orange-red to yellowish brown discolorations of the tooth surface ( antimony teeth ), with the effects greatest at the sites of defects [41],... 

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