On December 23, Tsinghua University's official Weibo announced that Zhu Ling, a 1992 alumnus of the school and a brave and strong alumnus, passed away in Beijing on December 22, 2023.
Zhu Ling, a 92-level student in the Department of Chemistry of Tsinghua University, began to have a strange illness at the end of 1994 and was diagnosed with thallium poisoning, a highly toxic substance, on April 28, 1995. Subsequently, all parties believed that they had been poisoned, and the police opened a case for investigation, but there has been no clear conclusion so far. Some people say that Zhu Ling popularized the knowledge of "thallium" for people at a cost of almost his life.
Zhu Ling in the ward (Source: Phoenix Weekly)
What is thallium poisoning?
Thallium is a rare metal element, silvery-white, soft, highly toxic, and can emit a very beautiful green flame when burned. Thallium and thallium oxides are toxic and can cause lesions in the central nervous system, gastrointestinal system and kidneys. Thallium poisoning can occur if a person drinks water contaminated with thallium or inhales dust containing thallium compounds. Thallium is more toxic than lead, mercury, cadmium, copper, and zinc, and the minimum lethal dose in adults is about 12 milligrams per kilogram of body weight, and less than 1 gram can cause death.
Thallium (Source: Internet)
But thallium poisoning is a very rare disease. Because thallium is difficult to contact with ordinary people, thallium poisoning is mostly caused by poisoning, and the onset of the disease is acute and severe. And because thallium salt is colorless, tasteless crystals, and has no special taste after being dissolved in water, it is difficult to detect and becomes a weakness of prevention.
According to the article "Progress in the Diagnosis, Treatment and Metabolism of Thallium Poisoning" published in the Chinese Journal of Emergency Medicine in 2015, most of the non-occupational thallium poisoning is caused by internal administration of thallium salts or external thallium-containing drugs for the treatment of hirsutism and other diseases, a few cases are caused by the misuse of thallium-containing rodents, insecticides, and mosquito killers, and a very small number of people are poisoned by intravenous injection; At present, the main causes of acute thallium poisoning are ingestion and poisoning.
There is no specific drug for thallium poisoning, and the best way to detoxify is to use hemoperfusion, plasma exchange and other methods to remove thallium from the blood of the poisoned person.
Thallium poisoning is not an isolated case
In recent years, news cases related to thallium poisoning have been seen at home and abroad.
In December 2014, media reported that a family of six in Linquan County, Fuyang City, Anhui Province, had suffered thallium poisoning, and five of them were in serious condition. The person suspected that someone had poisoned the leftovers, saying that it was not the first time that he had been poisoned. After being poisoned, the family suffered from pain and hair loss, and after being taken to the hospital, doctors used perfusion, plasmapheresis and other treatment methods to remove the toxin.
Dongguan Center for Disease Control and Prevention
In April 2016, Xiao Zhao, a 15-year-old boy living in Qujing City, Yunnan Province, secretly bought a few grams of thallium from the Internet to prepare for a chemical experiment. But he accidentally got a little bit on his hand, and then he showed signs of poisoning. Xiao Zhao's father posted on Weibo for help, obtained Prussian blue detoxification from an institution, and then went to Beijing for further examination and treatment.
In December 2020, the Chinese Business Daily, citing the Daily Mail and other media reports, reported that Yukai Yang, a Chinese student who had studied chemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, began adding heavy metal thallium to the food, drinks and mouthwash of his African-American roommate Luo Le between February and April 2018. After being poisoned, Rohr lost weight sharply, and also produced symptoms such as headaches and nausea, and even described "the severe pain after poisoning as if he had been cut by a thousand knives". Yang Yukai eventually pleaded guilty.
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(Source: Jimu News)
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