>From: "Lee Hamilton" <[log in to unmask]>
>In watching some shows regarding dust baths, the ingredient in this is a
>volcano dust based product.  I would not think that this would be good
>for the ferrets nasal passages as some litters are very bothersome to my
>little guys.
 
If it is truth volcanic ash, or ground pumice, (but I have yet to have a
definitive answer to my question), it probably might be irritating, but
inert and not likely to cause any toxicity.  If you knew how much smoke and
soot are in our lungs just from being cosmopolitian urban humans (not even
smokers) - you'd gag.  But being inert, it never really does us any harm.
 
The lungs and respiratory tract are designed to deal with this type of
insult believe it or not.  Little hairs lining the nasal passages and
windpipe catch the dust, coat it in mucus, and pass it back up to be
coughed out (the so-called "mucociliary escalator").  If it is small enough
to get down to the lung - 5 microns or less (actually a 100,000th of a
meter, or a hundredth of a millimeter), then the white blood cells which
normal live down there gobble it up and cart it off.
 
In humans, it takes a lot to combat these effective mechanism.  But you
can shut down and shortly wipe out the mucociliary escalator, natures #1
defense for the lung by doing one thing - smoking.
 
With kindest regards,
Bruce Williams, DVM
[Posted in FML issue 3324]