This primarily happens in the liver, the main site at which cortisone becomes cortisol after oral or systemic injection, and can thus have a pharmacological effect. After application to the skin or injection into a joint, local cells that express 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 instead convert it to active cortisol. A cortisone injection may provide short-term pain relief and may reduce the swelling from inflammation of a joint, tendon, or bursa in, for example, the joints of the knee, elbow and shoulder and into a broken coccyx.Cortisone is also used by dermatologists to treat keloids, relieve the symptoms of eczema and atopic dermatitis, and stop the development of sarcoidosis. Side effects
Oral use of cortisone has a number of potential systemic adverse effects, including asthma, hyperglycemia, insulin resistance, diabetes mellitus, osteoporosis, anxiety, depression, amenorrhoea, cataracts, glaucoma, Cushings syndrome, increased risk of infections and impaired growth. With topical application, it can lead to thinning of the skin, impaired wound healing, increased skin pigmentation, tendon rupture and skin infections (including abscesses). History
Cortisone was first identified by the American chemists Edward Calvin Kendall and Harold L. Mason while researching at the Mayo Clinic. During the discovery process, cortisone was known as compound E (while cortisol was known as compound F). In 1949, Philip S. Hench and colleagues discovered that large doses of injected cortisone were effective in the treatment of patients with severe rheumatoid arthritis.
Judean brass from the 14th to 10th centuries BC contains 23% zinc.Knowledge of how to produce brass spread to Ancient Greece by the 7th century BC, but few varieties were made. Ornaments made of alloys containing 80–90% zinc, with lead, iron, antimony, and other metals making up the remainder, have been found that are 2,500 years old. A possibly prehistoric statuette containing 87.5% zinc was found in a Dacian archaeological site.The oldest known pills were made of the zinc carbonates hydrozincite and smithsonite. The pills were used for sore eyes and were found aboard the Roman ship Relitto del Pozzino, wrecked in 140 BC.The manufacture of brass was known to the Romans by about 30 BC. They made brass by heating powdered calamine (zinc silicate or carbonate), charcoal and copper together in a crucible. The resulting calamine brass was then either cast or hammered into shape for use in weaponry. Some coins struck by Romans in the Christian era are made of what is probably calamine brass.Strabo writing in the 1st century BC (but quoting a now lost work of the 4th century BC historian Theopompus) mentions "drops of false silver" which when mixed with copper make brass. This may refer to small quantities of zinc that is a by-product of smelting sulfide ores. Zinc in such remnants in smelting ovens was usually discarded as it was thought to be worthless.The Berne zinc tablet is a votive plaque dating to Roman Gaul made of an alloy that is mostly zinc.