Osmium isotope analysis as an innovative tool for provenancing ancient iron: A systematic approach.

The innovation of iron production is often considered one of the greatest technological advances in human history. A reliable provenancing method for iron is instrumental for the reconstruction of economic, social and geo-political aspects of iron production and use in antiquity. Although the potential of osmium isotopes analysis for this purpose has been previously suggested, here we present for the first time the results of osmium isotope analysis of ores, bloom and metal obtained from a set of systematic, bloomery iron-smelting experiments, utilizing selected ores from the Southern Levant. The results show that the 187Os/188Os ratio is preserved from ore to metal, with no isotopic fractionation. In addition, enrichment/depletion of osmium content was observed in the transition from ore to metal and from ore to slag. This observation has potential significance for our ability to differentiate between the various processes and sheds light on the suitability of various production remains for this method, which emerges as a robust and promising tool for the provenancing of archaeological ferrous metals.

Investigating the Essentiality and Requirements of Iron from the Ancient to the Present.

This review discusses the development of studies that evaluated the essentiality and requirements of iron from the ancient to the present. The therapeutic effects of iron compounds were recognized by the ancient Greeks and Romans. The earliest recognition of the essentiality of iron was stated by Paracelsus, a distinguished physician alchemist, in the sixteenth century. Iron was included in the earliest nutritional standard prepared for the Royal Army by E. A. Parkes, the first professor of hygiene. The League of Nations Health Organisation determined average iron requirements based on literature review. In the first US Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA), the RDA of iron was determined from the results of iron balance studies. In the current Dietary Reference Intakes, iron requirements were determined based on the factorial method with the aid of Monte Carlo simulation for combining basal and menstrual iron losses. Population data analysis is a recently developed alternative that does not use the pre-estimated iron absorption rate and requires the prevalence of inadequacy instead. Population data analysis uses the convolution integral for combining basal and menstrual iron losses to ensure the required accuracy. This review also provides new estimates of hair and nail iron losses.

[About a quarrel concerning the artificial production of iron. The differences between Nicolas Lémery and his son, Louis].

In the early eighteenth century, a quarrel developed between the chemists at the Académie royale des sciences. They discussed the question if it were possible or not to make artificially some iron from the combustion of vegetal organisms. Étienne-François Geoffroy defended the thesis resting on certain alchemical texts, but Louis Lémery, Nicolas' son, refused it in the name of a mechanistic conception of chemical operations. Louis Lémery also had to oppose the hypothesis emitted by his father who preferred to admit that the test of the magnet, which was used to reveal the presence of fragments of iron into the ashes, was not convincing. He thought that other substances than iron could be attracted by the magnet. Louis thus had to reject the positions of his father, the latter did not seem for him to have a rather vigorous position against the allusions to alchemical writings and in favour of the strictly mechanistic theories.

["Doliarina and iron powder": an important medicine at Peckolt Pharmacy]. / "Pós de doliarina e ferro": um dos remédios importantes da Farmácia Peckolt.

The pharmacist Theodoro Peckolt was one of the most important figures in the history of the chemistry of natural Brazilian products. Like other nineteenth-century pharmacists in Brazil, he developed formulations and sold them at his pharmacy in Rio de Janeiro, and these enjoyed great prestige in the eyes both of the public and the medical community. The article discusses the relation between the illness originally called "opilação" (ancylostomiasis, or hookworm) and nineteenth-century treatment. It focuses especially on Peckolt Pharmacy's "Doliarina and iron powder," a formulation extracted from the Ficus gomelleira rubber plant. One of the article's goals is to use modern methods to analyze Ficus gomelleira and identify the chemical composition of the drug.

"Pós de doliarina e ferro": um dos remédios importantes da Farmácia Peckolt / "Doliarina and iron powder": an important medicine at Peckolt Pharmacy

Resumo O farmacêutico Theodoro Peckolt é uma das mais importantes figuras da história da química de produtos naturais brasileira. Como outros farmacêuticos do século XIX que atuavam no Brasil, desenvolveu formulações que comercializava em sua farmácia, localizada no Rio de Janeiro, e que tiveram grande prestígio junto à população e à classe médica. O texto apresenta a relação entre a doença identificada inicialmente como opilação e a terapêutica utilizada no século XIX, destacando uma das formulações da Farmácia Peckolt – “Pós de doliarina e ferro”. O produto tem sua origem no látex da espécie Ficus gomelleira(figueira-branca ou gameleira). O artigo tem entre seus objetivos revelar a composição química, feita por métodos modernos de análise do látex deFicus gomelleira.

Abstract The pharmacist Theodoro Peckolt was one of the most important figures in the history of the chemistry of natural Brazilian products. Like other nineteenth-century pharmacists in Brazil, he developed formulations and sold them at his pharmacy in Rio de Janeiro, and these enjoyed great prestige in the eyes both of the public and the medical community. The article discusses the relation between the illness originally called “opilação” (ancylostomiasis, or hookworm) and nineteenth-century treatment. It focuses especially on Peckolt Pharmacy’s “Doliarina and iron powder,” a formulation extracted from the Ficus gomelleira rubber plant. One of the article’s goals is to use modern methods to analyze Ficus gomelleira and identify the chemical composition of the drug.

The little known Mineral and Chemical History of Iron and A History of Brass by an eighteenth-century technologist, William Lewis (1708-1781).

Sometime during the 1920s, Cardiff Public Libraries (later to become Cardiff Central Library) acquired a six-volume handwritten manuscript collection entitled Mineral & Chemical History of Iron. The author of the manuscripts is named as William Lewis. Now uniformly bound in half-leather and cloth boards, this impressive holding provides, in more than a thousand handwritten pages, an early attempt to produce a full-scale treatise in English on the history of iron.' This note traces the route by which the collection reached Cardiff, and also presents evidence for the existence of a hitherto unknown work on the history of brass by the same author.

The long history of iron in the Universe and in health and disease.

BACKGROUND: Not long after the Big Bang, iron began to play a central role in the Universe and soon became mired in the tangle of biochemistry that is the prima essentia of life. Since life's addiction to iron transcends the oxygenation of the Earth's atmosphere, living things must be protected from the potentially dangerous mix of iron and oxygen. The human being possesses grams of this potentially toxic transition metal, which is shuttling through his oxygen-rich humor. Since long before the birth of modern medicine, the blood-vibrant red from a massive abundance of hemoglobin iron-has been a focus for health experts. SCOPE OF REVIEW: We describe the current understanding of iron metabolism, highlight the many important discoveries that accreted this knowledge, and describe the perils of dysfunctional iron handling. GENERAL SIGNIFICANCE: Isaac Newton famously penned, "If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants". We hope that this review will inspire future scientists to develop intellectual pursuits by understanding the research and ideas from many remarkable thinkers of the past. MAJOR CONCLUSIONS: The history of iron research is a long, rich story with early beginnings, and is far from being finished. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled Transferrins: Molecular mechanisms of iron transport and disorders.

Nonheme-iron histochemistry for light and electron microscopy: a historical, theoretical and technical review.

We reviewed the methods of nonheme-iron histochemistry with special focus on the underlying chemical principles. The term nonheme-iron includes heterogeneous species of iron complexes where iron is more loosely bound to low-molecular weight organic bases and proteins than that of heme (iron-protoporphyrin complex). Nonheme-iron is liberated in dilute acid solutions and available for conventional histochemistry by the Perls and Turnbull and other methods using iron chelators, which depend on the production of insoluble iron compounds. Treatment with strong oxidative agents is required for the liberation of heme-iron, which therefore is not stained by conventional histochemistry. The Perls method most commonly used in laboratory investigations largely stains ferric iron, but stains some ferrous iron as well, while the Turnbull method is specific for the latter. Although the Turnbull method performed on sections fails in staining ferrous iron or stains only such parts of the tissue where iron is heavily accumulated, an in vivo perfusion-Turnbull method demonstrated the ubiquitous distribution of ferrous iron, particularly in lysosomes. The Perls or Turnbull reaction is enhanced by DAB/silver/gold methods for electron microscopy. The iron sulfide method and the staining of redox-active iron with H(2)O(2) and DAB are also applicable for electron microscopy. Although the above histochemical methods have advantages for visualizing iron by conventional light and electron microscopy, the quantitative estimation of iron is not easy. Recent methods depending on the quenching of fluorescent divalent metal indicators by Fe(2+) and dequenching by divalent metal chelators have enabled the quantitative estimation of chelatable Fe(2+) in isolated viable cells.

Throwing down the gauntlet: 'iron hands' and the sixteenth century armourer.

The work of sixteenth century 'medical armourers' in the manufacture of iron hands based on skills developed in the manufacture of armoured gauntlets is briefly explored. In order to illustrate their form and function, reference is made to an iron hand in the collection of the British Museum and a comparison is made with another example manufactured around the same period.

Insects, oxygen, and iron.

Konrad Bloch developed an interest in insects because they are unable to make sterols, and in yeast because these cells need oxygen to make sterols and unsaturated fatty acids. Insects, like all other organisms, must deal with the toxic effects of oxygen in the presence of iron, which itself is a vital nutrient. They do so by making proteins with high affinity for ferric or ferrous ions. Two such proteins are transferrins and ferritins. Insects produce both of these proteins, but use them in different ways from most other organisms. Insect transferrins appear to be involved in innate immunity, perhaps by sequestering ferric ions to prevent pathogens and parasites from utilizing them. Insect ferritins, unlike those of any other group of organisms, are exported into the extracellular space (hemolymph). They may be involved in iron transport and/or protection against iron overload in the diet.