Copper and the liver: late lessons from the Camperdown experience.

In 1973 copper-associated liver disease was first described in an Australian boy of non-Indian origin who died at the age of 15 months with liver cirrhosis. At necropsy the hepatic copper concentration was excessively high (> 300 mg/g dry weight). It was shown that the boy s disease was caused by consumption of copper contaminated drinking water.