Gold metal was voted Allergen of the Year in 2001 by the American Contact Dermatitis Society; gold contact allergies affect mostly women. Despite this, gold is a relatively non-potent contact allergen, in comparison with metals like nickel.A sample of the fungus Aspergillus niger was found growing from gold mining solution; and was found to contain cyano metal complexes, such as gold, silver, copper, iron and zinc. The fungus also plays a role in the solubilization of heavy metal sulfides. See also
References
Further reading
Bachmann, H. G. The lure of gold : an artistic and cultural history (2006) online
Bernstein, Peter L. The Power of Gold: The History of an Obsession (2000) onlineBrands, H.W. The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream (2003) excerpt
Buranelli, Vincent. Gold : an illustrated history (1979) online wide-ranging popular history
Cassel, Gustav. "The restoration of the gold standard." Economica 9 (1923): 171-185. online
Eichengreen, Barry. Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919–1939 (Oxford UP, 1992). Ferguson, Niall. The Ascent of Money - Financial History of the World (2009) online
Hart, Matthew, Gold: The Race for the Worlds Most Seductive Metal Gold : the race for the worlds most seductive metal"], New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013. ISBN 9781451650020
Johnson, Harry G. "The gold rush of 1968 in retrospect and prospect." American Economic Review 59.2 (1969): 344-348. online
Kwarteng, Kwasi. War and Gold: A Five-Hundred-Year History of Empires, Adventures, and Debt (2014) online
Vilar, Pierre. A History of Gold and Money, 1450 to 1920 (1960). online
Vilches, Elvira.
However, the use of gold in other applications in electronic sliding contacts in highly humid or corrosive atmospheres, and in use for contacts with a very high failure cost (certain computers, communications equipment, spacecraft, jet aircraft engines) remains very common.Besides sliding electrical contacts, gold is also used in electrical contacts because of its resistance to corrosion, electrical conductivity, ductility and lack of toxicity. Switch contacts are generally subjected to more intense corrosion stress than are sliding contacts. Fine gold wires are used to connect semiconductor devices to their packages through a process known as wire bonding. The concentration of free electrons in gold metal is 5.91×1022 cm−3. Gold is highly conductive to electricity, and has been used for electrical wiring in some high-energy applications (only silver and copper are more conductive per volume, but gold has the advantage of corrosion resistance). For example, gold electrical wires were used during some of the Manhattan Projects atomic experiments, but large high-current silver wires were used in the calutron isotope separator magnets in the project. It is estimated that 16% of the worlds presently-accounted-for gold and 22% of the worlds silver is contained in electronic technology in Japan. Medicine
Metallic and gold compounds have long been used for medicinal purposes. Gold, usually as the metal, is perhaps the most anciently administered medicine (apparently by shamanic practitioners) and known to Dioscorides. In medieval times, gold was often seen as beneficial for the health, in the belief that something so rare and beautiful could not be anything but healthy.