Oh dear Lord, maybe the homeopathic cranks have been on to something all along!
Oh dear Lord, maybe the homeopathic cranks have been on to something all along!
Edit-also note, this may be more like alchemy. They’re seeing the atoms on the surface performing the catalytic effect but the platinum resides below the surface. So the nearby platinum atoms are making the gallium mimic platinum properties.
> When on the order of one dopant atom is added per 100 million atoms, the doping is said to be low or light.
Water has a density of 1 g/mL, most other fluids we ingest are close, but gallium weighs 5g per milliliter and platinum over 20 g/ml.
In purely mechanical considerations, 1000 ml of platinum would weigh 21.4 kg or almost 50 lbs. I'm not a doctor, but I imagine the stomach is not able to hold that much weight!
https://yesdirt.com/is-gallium-toxic/
Some compounds of it may have medical uses, though: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2898053/
That said, people have swallowed even crazier things, like when they used to use mercury (!!!) as a laxative:
https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/following-lewi...
The people assuming it was all cranks and snake oil, were ironically also assuming things without justifications. Though likely most of it is cranks and snake oil.