In 1994, Zhu Ling, who had already had thallium poisoning, participated in the performance of the school folk band in the ** hall of Beijing, and played a solo song "Guangling San", which left the curtain perfectly. 29 years later, Zhu Ling died in Beijing, and Babaoshan remembered this talented, strong and unfortunate Tsinghua University student with this already vague audio-visual material. Zhu Ling's thallium poisoning case
Zhu Ling, a 92-level student majoring in physical chemistry and instrumental analysis in the Department of Chemistry of Tsinghua University, began to fall ill at the end of 1994 and was diagnosed with thallium poisoning, a highly toxic substance, on April 28, 1995. Subsequently, ** opened a case for investigation, but so far to no avail. Zhu Ling was disabled for life due to the toxins that invaded her brain, nervous system, digestive system, etc., and her voice could not speak, and her intelligence deteriorated to the stage of childhood. On the evening of December 22, 2023, Zhu Ling passed away in Beijing.
The process of confirming Zhu Ling's thallium poisoning did not go well. Beijing *** has conducted a number of tests on Zhu Ling (including HIV, spinal tap, MRI, immune system, chemical poisoning, antinuclear antibodies, nuclear antigen antibodies and Lyme disease, etc.), but except for Lyme disease, the test results of other items are negative. Professor Li Shunwei, a neurologist at **, once told Zhu Ling's mother that "it is too much like a case of thallium salt poisoning at Tsinghua University in the 60s". However, because Zhu Ling denied that there was a history of thallium salt exposure, andNot qualified for this test,** no test for thallium poisoning.
On April 10, 1995, Zhu Ling's high school classmates Pei Zhicheng, Cai Quanqing, and others translated this unknown illness into English and sent an e-mail message calling for help through the Internet. After that, 1,635 replies were received from 18 countries and regions around the world, of which about one-third of the replies believed that it was a typical thallium poisoning phenomenon.
When Zhu Ling's parents learned that Professor Chen Zhenyang of the Beijing Municipal Institute for Occupational Disease Health Prevention and Control could conduct an assessment of thallium poisoning, they secretly obtained Zhu Ling's urine, cerebrospinal fluid, blood, nails and hair with the help of a conscientious doctor and went to the Beijing Municipal Institute for Occupational Disease Prevention and Control on April 28, 1995 for examination. On the same day, Chen Zhenyang issued a test report, believing that Zhu Ling was poisoned with thallium twice, and the thallium content in Zhu Ling's body after the second poisoning far exceeded the lethal dose, and suspected that someone deliberately poisoned him.
According to the feedback on the Internet and the results of Chen Zhenyang's laboratory test on April 28, 1995, Zhu Ling began to take the symptomatic drug Prussian blue, and on the day of taking it, the concentration of thallium ions in the blood began to decline, but because the thallium ions stayed in the body for too long, Zhu Ling's nervous system was seriously damaged, his vision was almost completely lost, his body function was also seriously damaged, and he was still in a coma. In the past few decades, Zhu Ling, the pride of the sky, has become a middle-aged woman who is almost blind in both eyes, weighing more than 160 pounds, paralyzed, losing all motor functions, mild cerebral atrophy, unable to take care of herself, sitting in a wheelchair all day long, relying on her parents' small pension to maintain a fragile life.
So now that science is so advanced, how do we detect thallium in articles?
With the continuous development of science and technology, the method of detecting whether thallium is present in articles is becoming more and more mature. At present, the commonly used detection methods mainly include spectroscopy and mass spectrometry.
Spectroscopic analysis is a common means of detecting the content of a substance, and by analyzing the spectrum emitted by the substance, the elemental composition of the substance can be determined. For the detection of thallium, methods such as atomic absorption spectroscopy, atomic fluorescence spectroscopy, and inductively coupled plasma emission spectrometry can be used. These methods can quickly and accurately determine the thallium content in articles with high sensitivity and accuracy.
Mass spectrometry is another commonly used detection method that allows the molecular weight and elemental composition of a substance to be determined by analyzing its mass and charge ratio. For the detection of thallium, methods such as inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and glow discharge mass spectrometry can be used. These methods can not only determine the thallium content in articles, but also detect other trace elements at the same time, which is suitable for the detection of a variety of samples.
In addition to the above two methods, some other detection methods can also be used, such as chemical analysis, bioanalysis, and immunoassay. Each of these methods has its own advantages and disadvantages, and the appropriate method can be selected for detection according to different situations.
In short, with the continuous development of science and technology, there are more and more ways to detect whether items contain thallium. We can choose the appropriate method for testing according to the actual situation to ensure the safety and reliability of the item.