Editing Phenol (section)

==History==
[[File:Bottle of Phenol.jpg|thumb|right|Bottle of Calvert's phenol antiseptic, [[Thackray Museum of Medicine]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=182.095 {{!}} Collections Online |url=https://collections.thackraymuseum.co.uk/object-182-095 |access-date=2024-05-30 |website=collections.thackraymuseum.co.uk}}</ref>]]
Phenol was discovered in 1834 by [[Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge]], who extracted it (in impure form) from [[coal tar]].<ref>F. F. Runge (1834) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89048351654&view=1up&seq=81 "Ueber einige Produkte der Steinkohlendestillation"] (On some products of coal distillation), ''Annalen der Physik und Chemie'', '''31''': 65-78. On page 69 of volume 31, Runge names phenol "Karbolsäure" (coal-oil-acid, carbolic acid). Runge characterizes phenol in: F. F. Runge (1834) [http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89048351654#page/308/mode/1up "Ueber einige Produkte der Steinkohlendestillation,"] ''Annalen der Physik und Chemie'', '''31''': 308-328.</ref> Runge called phenol "Karbolsäure" (coal-oil-acid, carbolic acid). Coal tar remained the primary source until the development of the [[petrochemical industry]]. French chemist [[Auguste Laurent]] extracted phenol in its pure form, as a derivative of benzene, in 1841.<ref>Auguste Laurent (1841) [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k347443/f194.image "Mémoire sur le phényle et ses dérivés"] (Memoir on benzene and its derivatives), ''Annales de Chimie et de Physique'', series 3, '''3''': 195-228. On page 198, Laurent names phenol "hydrate de phényle" and "l'acide phénique".</ref> In 1836, Auguste Laurent coined the name "phène" for benzene;<ref>Auguste Laurent (1836) "Sur la chlorophénise et les acides chlorophénisique et chlorophénèsique," ''Annales de Chemie et de Physique'', vol. 63, pp. 27–45, see [https://books.google.com/books?id=Lx0AAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA44 p. 44]: Je donne le nom de phène au radical fondamental des acides précédens (φαινω, j'éclaire), puisque la benzine se trouve dans le gaz de l'éclairage. (I give the name of "phène" (φαινω, I illuminate) to the fundamental radical of the preceding acid, because benzene is found in illuminating gas.)</ref> this is the root of the word "phenol" and "[[phenyl]]". In 1843, French chemist [[Charles Frédéric Gerhardt|Charles Gerhardt]] coined the name "phénol".<ref>Gerhardt, Charles (1843) [http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x002489028;view=1up#page/215/mode/1up "Recherches sur la salicine,"] ''Annales de Chimie et de Physique'', series 3, '''7''': 215-229. Gerhardt coins the name "phénol" on page 221.</ref>

The [[antiseptic]] properties of phenol were used by Sir [[Joseph Lister]] in his pioneering technique of antiseptic surgery. Lister decided that the wounds had to be thoroughly cleaned. He then covered the wounds with a piece of rag or lint<ref>{{cite web |first=Joseph |last=Lister |title=Antiseptic Principle Of The Practice Of Surgery |year=1867 |url=https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1867lister.asp}}</ref> covered in phenol. The skin irritation caused by continual exposure to phenol eventually led to the introduction of aseptic (germ-free) techniques in surgery. Lister's work was inspired by the works and experiments of his contemporary [[Louis Pasteur]] in sterilizing various biological media. He theorized that if germs could be killed or prevented, no infection would occur. Lister reasoned that a chemical could be used to destroy the micro-organisms that cause infection.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hollingham|first1=Richard|title=Blood and Guts: A History of Surgery|date=2008|publisher=BBC Books - Random House|isbn=9781407024530|page=61}}</ref>

Meanwhile, in [[Carlisle]], England, officials were experimenting with [[sewage treatment]] using carbolic acid to reduce the smell of sewage [[Cesspit|cesspools]]. Having heard of these developments, and having previously experimented with other chemicals for antiseptic purposes without much success, Lister decided to try carbolic acid as a wound antiseptic. He had his first chance on August 12, 1865, when he received a patient: an eleven-year-old boy with a tibia bone fracture which pierced the skin of his lower leg. Ordinarily, amputation would be the only solution. However, Lister decided to try carbolic acid. After setting the bone and supporting the leg with splints, he soaked clean cotton towels in undiluted carbolic acid and applied them to the wound, covered with a layer of tin foil, leaving them for four days. When he checked the wound, Lister was pleasantly surprised to find no signs of infection, just redness near the edges of the wound from mild burning by the carbolic acid. Reapplying fresh bandages with diluted carbolic acid, the boy was able to walk home after about six weeks of treatment.<ref name="BBC Books - Randomhouse">{{cite book|last1=Hollingham|first1=Richard|title=Blood and Guts: A History of Surgery|date=2008|publisher=BBC Books - Random House|isbn=9781407024530|page=62}}</ref>

<blockquote>By 16 March 1867, when the first results of Lister's work were published in the Lancet, he had treated a total of eleven patients using his new antiseptic method. Of those, only one had died, and that was through a complication that was nothing to do with Lister's wound-dressing technique. Now, for the first time, patients with compound fractures were likely to leave the hospital with all their limbs intact
:— Richard Hollingham, ''Blood and Guts: A History of Surgery'', p. 62<ref name="BBC Books - Randomhouse"/></blockquote>

<blockquote>Before antiseptic operations were introduced at the hospital, there were sixteen deaths in thirty-five surgical cases. Almost one in every two patients died. After antiseptic surgery was introduced in the summer of 1865, there were only six deaths in forty cases. The mortality rate had dropped from almost 50 per cent to around 15 per cent. It was a remarkable achievement
:— Richard Hollingham, ''Blood and Guts: A History of Surgery'', p. 63<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hollingham|first1=Richard|title=Blood and Guts: A History of Surgery|date=2008|publisher=BBC Books - Randomhouse|isbn=9781407024530|page=63}}</ref></blockquote>

Phenol was the main ingredient of the "carbolic smoke ball," an ineffective device marketed in London in the 19th century as protection against influenza and other ailments, and the subject of the famous law case ''[[Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Company]]''. In the tort law case of ''[[Roe v Minister of Health]]'', phenol was used to sterilize [[anaesthetic]] packed in [[ampoule]]s, in which it contaminated the anaesthetic through invisible micro-cracks and caused [[paraplegia]] to the plaintiffs.

===Second World War===
The [[Phenol#Toxicity|toxic effect of phenol]] on the central nervous system causes sudden collapse and loss of consciousness in both humans and animals; a state of cramping precedes these symptoms because of the motor activity controlled by the central nervous system.<ref name=U/> Injections of phenol were used as a means of individual execution by [[Nazi Germany]] during the [[Second World War]].<ref name=TysonNOVA>[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/holocaust/experiside.html#pois ''The Experiments''] by Peter Tyson. NOVA</ref> It was originally used by the Nazis in 1939 as part of the mass-murder of disabled people under ''[[Aktion T4]]''.<ref name=NaziDrs>[http://www.holocaust-history.org/lifton/LiftonT254.shtml ''The Nazi Doctors''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171022104811/http://www.holocaust-history.org/lifton/LiftonT254.shtml |date=2017-10-22 }}, Chapter 14, Killing with Syringes: Phenol Injections. By Dr. Robert Jay Lifton</ref> The Germans learned that extermination of smaller groups was more economical by injection of each victim with phenol. Phenol injections were given to thousands of people. [[Maximilian Kolbe]] was also murdered with a phenol injection after surviving two weeks of dehydration and starvation in [[Auschwitz]] when he volunteered to die in place of [[Franciszek Gajowniczek|a stranger]]. Approximately one gram is sufficient to cause death.<ref name="carbolic">{{cite web |publisher=Johannes Kepler University |location=Linz, Austria |work=Auschwitz: Final Station Extermination |title=Killing through phenol injection |url=http://www.wsg-hist.uni-linz.ac.at/AUSCHWITZ/HTML/Phenol.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061112224223/http://www.wsg-hist.uni-linz.ac.at/AUSCHWITZ/HTML/Phenol.html|archive-date=2006-11-12 |url-status=dead}}</ref>