Hazardous Chemicals

Agents of Risk and Change, 1800-2000

Ernst Homburg, Elisabeth Vaupel (Herausgeber)

Buch | Hardcover

422 Seiten

2019
Berghahn Books (Verlag)
978-1-78920-319-6 (ISBN)

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Covering a host of both notorious and little-known substances, the chapters in this collection investigate the emergence of specific toxic, pathogenic, carcinogenic, and ecologically harmful chemicals as well as the scientific, cultural and legislative responses they have prompted over the past two hundred years.

Although poisonous substances have been a hazard for the whole of human history, it is only with the development and large-scale production of new chemical substances over the last two centuries that toxic, manmade pollutants have become such a varied and widespread danger. Covering a host of both notorious and little-known chemicals, the chapters in this collection investigate the emergence of specific toxic, pathogenic, carcinogenic, and ecologically harmful chemicals as well as the scientific, cultural and legislative responses they have prompted. Each study situates chemical hazards in a long-term and transnational framework and demonstrates the importance of considering both the natural and the social contexts in which their histories have unfolded.

Ernst Homburg is Professor of History of Science and Technology Emeritus at Maastricht University. His scholarly work has included the co-editorship of two multivolume book series on the history of technology in the Netherlands, as well as of New Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2007), and Solvay: History of a Multinational Family Firm (2012, with Kenneth Bertrams and Nicolas Coupain).

List of Figures and Tables

Abbreviations

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Hazardous Chemicals, 1800–2000: A Conceptual and Regulatory Overview

Ernst Homburg and Elisabeth Vaupel

PART I: FROM ACUTE TO CHRONIC POISONING: REGULATING OLD POISONS IN THE INDUSTRIAL AGE

Chapter 1. Schweinfurt Green and the Sanitary Police: The Fight Against Copper Arsenite Pigments

Joost Mertens†

Chapter 2. The Banning of White Lead: French and International Regulations

Laurence Lestel

Chapter 3. Old Situations, New Complications: Lead and Lead Poisoning in a Changing World

Christian Warren

PART II: DISCOVERING NEW HEALTH IMPACTS: CARCIOGENESIS, MUTAGENESIS AND MORE IN TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY AND NON-KNOWLEDGE

Chapter 4. Discovering Chemical Carcinogenesis: The Case of the Aromatic Amines

Heiko Stoff and Anthony S. Travis

Chapter 5. Cyclamates: A Tale of Uncertain Knowledge (1930s–1980s)

Alexander von Schwerin

Chapter 6. Cadmium Poisoning in Japan: The Itai-itai Disease and Beyond

Masanori Kaji†

Chapter 7. Dioxins: The “Total Poison”

Stefan Böschen

PART III: NEW PRODUCTS, NEW EFFECTS. THE DISCOVERY OF THE ENVIRONMENT AND THE LONG SHADOW OF THE 1960S

Chapter 8. Organophosphates

Frederick R. Davis

Chapter 9. A Tale of Two Nations: DDT in the USA and the UK

Peter J. T. Morris

Chapter 10. War and Peace: The Phenoxy Herbicides

Amy M. Hay

Chapter 11. Raising a Stink: The Short Happy Life of MTBE

John K. Smith

Conclusions

Ernst Homburg and Elisabeth Vaupel

Index

Erscheinungsdatum	02.09.2019
Reihe/Serie	Environment in History: International Perspectives
Verlagsort	Oxford
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Themenwelt	Naturwissenschaften ► Biologie ► Ökologie / Naturschutz
ISBN-10	1-78920-319-8 / 1789203198
ISBN-13	978-1-78920-319-6 / 9781789203196
Zustand	Neuware