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In ancient Rome, many of the richer people in the population had lead-induced gout. The reason for this is unclear. Lead poisoning has also been linked to madness.
Dogs have been used in studies to detect various cancers in human subjects. They have been trained to sniff breath samples from humans that were collected by having them breathe into special tubes. These people included 55 lung cancer patients, 31 breast cancer patients, and 83 cancer-free patients. The dogs detected 54 of the 55 lung cancer patients as having cancer, detected 28 of the 31 breast cancer patients, and gave only three false-positive results (detecting cancer in people who didn't have it).
Urine turns bright yellow if larger than normal amounts of certain substances are consumed; one of these substances is asparagus.
In 1864, the first barbiturate (barbituric acid) was synthesized.
Cancer has been around as long as humankind, but only in the second half of the twentieth century did the number of cancer cases explode.