The Public Health Workforce: An Agenda for the 21st Century

The human body has various defence mechanisms to eliminate these undesirable foreign objects. Two processes are involved: chemical dissolution for soluble particles and physical translocation, i.e., transport from one place to another, for insoluble or low-solubility particles. Soluble ultrafine dusts will act at the solubilization site and will not be discussed here, since the effects are highly variable depending on the dust composition and identical to those of larger dusts which are also solubilized. By translocation, insoluble or low-solubility particles deposited in the pulmonary system are eliminated from the respiratory system by transporting them elsewhere in the body. The...