We are all familiar with bismuth subsalicylate (C₇H₅BiO₄) and perhaps have used it medicinally:

I find the stuff to be most efficacious—nothing defeats diarrhea like Pepto!

Bismuth (#83) is right next to lead on the periodic table. Around here people like to shoot ducks. In California you can’t shoot ducks (or geese) with lead shot anymore. So, hunters now use bismuth. More precisely, they use shot made from a bismuth-tin alloy.

Bismuth was known to the ancients but was often confused with tin. It can be found in nature in its native metallic form. For a heavy metal it is not very toxic and thus bismuth and its alloys are increasingly substituted for lead products. It is similar to both arsenic (As, #33) and antimony (Sb, #51) which are in the same group (column) on the periodic table but again it is less toxic than either.

Worldwide bismuth is mostly obtained as a by-product from the refining of copper and lead. Annual production is probably less than 20,000 metric tons.