Chapter 4 Potion of the Three Deaths

For the first time in the history of the world, everyone now has to come into contact with dangerous chemicals from the time of conception until death.Synthetic pesticides have been in use for less than two decades, and they have spread throughout the animal and non-animal kingdoms, everywhere.We have detected these drugs from most important water systems and even from the middle of groundwater underflow that is hard to see under the formation.There are still residual poisons in the soil where chemical drugs were applied more than ten years ago.They commonly invade and persist in the bodies of fish, birds, reptiles, and domestic and wild animals.Scientists who conduct animal experiments also feel that it is impossible to find an uncontaminated test object.

These drugs have been found in fish in remote mountain lakes, in earthworms that crawl and burrow through the soil, in bird eggs; and in humans themselves; they are now stored in the vast majority of humans , regardless of their age.They also show up in the mother's milk and possibly in the tissues of the unborn baby. These phenomena were brought about by the sudden and rapid development of the industry for the production of man-made synthetic chemicals with insecticidal properties.This industry is a child of World War II.During the development of chemical warfare; it was discovered that some laboratory-made drugs were effective in killing insects.The discovery was no accident: insects, the scapegoats for human death, have been widely used to experiment with chemical drugs.

The result has been a seemingly endless stream of synthetic pesticides.As man-made products—created in the laboratory by deftly manipulating groups of molecules, substituting atoms and altering their arrangement—they differed considerably from the simpler, inorganic insecticides of prewar days.Previous medicines were derived from naturally occurring minerals and plant products—that is, compounds of arsenic, copper, aluminum, manganese, zinc, and others; pyrethrum from dried chrysanthemum flowers, nicotine sulfate from certain species of tobacco, rotenone from Eastern Legumes of the Indies. The enormous biological potency of these new synthetic insecticides is unlike any other drug.They have great medicinal power: they can not only poison living things, but also enter the most critical physiological processes in the body, and often cause fatal malignant changes in these physiological processes.Thus, as we shall see, they destroy precisely the enzymes that protect the body from harm: they block the oxidation process by which the body obtains energy; they block the normal functioning of organs. role; also produce slow and irreversible changes in certain cells, and this change leads to the result of malignant development.

However, every year, new chemical drugs with greater lethality are successfully developed, and each has a new use, so that the contact with these substances has practically spread all over the world.In the United States, production of synthetic pesticides soared from 124.259 million pounds in 1940 to 637.666 million pounds in 1960 pounds, more than five times the original.The total wholesale value of these products is well over $250 million.But in the light of the plans and prospects of this industry, this mass production is only the beginning. Therefore, a "Compilation of Insecticides" is closely related to all of us.If we are to live intimately with these drugs—we eat, drink, absorb them into our bone marrow—we had better understand their nature and their power.

Although World War II marked the gradual shift of insecticides from inorganic chemicals to the wonder world of carbon molecules, several old raw materials continued to be used.Chief among them is arsenic -- which is still a basic ingredient in many herbicides and insecticides.Arsenic is a highly toxic inorganic substance, which is found in high concentrations in various metal ores, but in very small amounts in volcanoes, oceans, and springs.The relationship between arsenic and humans is varied and historical.Because many arsenic-infused foods are tasteless, it has been used as the most versatile killing agent since before the time of the Borgias.Arsenic was first identified as a basic carcinogen.It was identified in chimney ashes by an English physician nearly two centuries ago, and it was linked to cancer.It is also documented that the entire human race has fallen into chronic arsenic poisoning epidemics for a long time.Arsenic-contaminated environments have caused disease and death among animals such as horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, deer, fish, and bees. Despite this record, arsenic sprays and dusts are still widely used.In the arsenic-sprayed cotton country of the southern United States, beekeeping as a profession nearly went bankrupt.Farmers who have used arsenic dust for a long time have suffered from chronic arsenic poisoning; livestock have also been poisoned by people using arsenic-containing field crop sprays and herbicides.Arsenic dust from blueberry fields, a species of bilberry, scattered on neighboring farms, polluted streams, fatally poisoned bees, cows, and sickened humans.An authoritative person on environmental cancer, Dr. W. C. Hueper of the National Cancer Prevention Association, said: "... In terms of dealing with arsenic, if we want to adopt the actual practice of our country in recent years-completely ignore the public opinion State of health—and more indifference, that is simply impossible. Anyone who has seen how an arsenic insecticide duster, sprayer works, must have a deep feeling for the sloppy application of poisonous substances, A long time to forget."

Modern pesticides are more lethal.Most of these naturally fall into one of two broad classes of chemical drugs. One class represented by DDT is the so-called "chlorinated hydrocarbons"; the other class consists of organophosphate insecticides represented by the somewhat familiar malathion and parathion (1605).They all have one thing in common. As mentioned above, they are mainly composed of carbon atoms-carbon atoms are also the indispensable "building blocks" of the living world-thus they are classified as "organic substances".In order to understand them, we must understand what they are made of, and how (though this is connected with the basic chemistry of all living things) they transform themselves into the variants that make them lethal agents.

This basic element, carbon, is an element whose atoms have an almost unlimited capacity to combine with each other into chains, rings, and various other configurations; and to associate with molecules of other substances. stand up.Indeed, the incredible diversity of living things—from bacteria to blue whales—is largely due to this ability of carbon.Like the molecules of fats, carbohydrates, enzymes, and vitamins, complex protein molecules are based on carbon atoms.Likewise; so are the numerous non-living things; for carbon is not necessarily a symbol of life. Certain organic compounds are simply compounds of carbon and hydrogen.The simplest of these compounds is methane, or methane, which is formed in nature by the bacterial breakdown of organic matter immersed in water.If methane is mixed with air in proper proportions, it becomes the dreaded "gas" in coal mines.It has a beautifully simple structure: it consists of one carbon atom to which four hydrogen atoms are attached.Scientists have discovered that it is possible to remove one or all of the hydrogen atoms and replace them with other elements.For example, by substituting a chlorine atom for an oxygen atom, we make methyl chloride.

Remove three hydrogen atoms and replace them with chlorine, and we have the anesthetic chloroform (trichloromethane). Replace all hydrogen atoms with chlorine atoms, and the result is carbon tetrachloride—the familiar washing liquid. In the simplest of terms, the back and forth around the basic methane molecule explains exactly what chlorinated hydrocarbons are.This account, however, gives only a slight hint of the true complexity of the chemical world of hydrocarbons, or of the manipulations by which organic chemists create infinitely varied substances.Because, instead of a simple methane molecule with only one carbon atom, it can work with hydrocarbon molecules composed of many carbon atoms arranged in rings or chains (with side chains or branches), and attached to these side The branched chain is such a chemical bond: not only a simple hydrogen atom or a chlorine atom, but also a variety of atomic groups.As long as there is a slight change in appearance, the entire characteristics of the substance will also change; for example, not only what element is attached to the carbon atom is important, but also the location of the attachment.Such ingenuity has resulted in a set of poisons of truly extraordinary power.

DDT (short for dichlorophenyltrichloroethane) was first synthesized by a German chemist in 1874, but its properties as an insecticide were not discovered until 1939.Then DDT was hailed as a means of eradicating pest-borne diseases and helping farmers defeat crop pests overnight.Its discoverer, Paul Muller of Switzerland, won the Nobel Prize. Now that DDT is so commonly used, the compound appears to most people as a harmless household item.Perhaps the myth of DDT's harmlessness is based on the fact that one of its first uses was the dusting of thousands of soldiers, refugees, and captives in wartime to combat lice.It is generally believed that since so many people have dealt with DDT in such an intimate way without being directly harmed, the drug must be harmless.This understandable misconception stems from the fact that - unlike other chlorinated hydrocarbon drugs - DDT in powder form is not readily absorbed through the skin. DDT dissolved in oil is, as it always is, definitely poisonous.If swallowed, it is slowly absorbed through the digestive tract; also absorbed through the lungs.Once it enters the human body, it is stored in large quantities in fatty organs (because DDT itself is fat-soluble), such as the adrenal gland, testis, and thyroid gland.A substantial portion is retained in the fat of the liver, kidneys, and the hypertrophic, protective mesentery that surrounds the intestines.

This storage process of DDT starts from its intelligible minimum intake (it exists in most foods as residual poison) and stops when it reaches a relatively high storage level.These fat-containing depots act as biological amplifiers, so that an intake as small as 1/10,000,000 of a meal can accumulate in the body to about 10-15/100,000. More than a hundred times.Such references, so commonplace to a chemist or pharmacologist, are unfamiliar to most of us.One part per million sounds like a very small amount—and it is; but such a substance is so potent that a tiny dose can cause enormous changes in the body.In animal experiments, it was found that 3 parts per million of the drug could prevent the activity of a major enzyme in the heart muscle; only 5 parts per million caused necrosis and disintegration of liver cells; only 2.5 parts per million The close relatives of DDT, dieldrin and chlordane, have the same effect.

This is really not surprising.Such cases of small causes leading to serious consequences exist in normal body chemistry.For example, as little as two ten-thousandths of a gram of iodine can make the difference between health and disease.Since these small quantities of pesticides can be stored in drips but excreted only slowly, the threat of chronic poisoning and degeneration of the liver and other organs is very real. Scientists have no consensus on how much DDT can be stored in the human body."There is neither a minimum level below which DDT is no longer absorbed nor a maximum level beyond which it is absorbed and The storage ends." On the other hand, Dr. Willander Hayes of the U.S. Surgeon General argues that in each individual there is a point of equilibrium at which DDT is excreted .For practical purposes, it is not particularly important which of the two is right.Stockpiles of DDT in humans have been investigated in detail, and we know that ordinary human stockpiles are potentially harmful.According to the results of various studies, from poisoned (except unavoidable dietary) individuals, the average reserve is 5.3 to 7.4 parts per million; agricultural workers are 10 parts per million. 7.1; while the number of workers in the insecticide factory is as high as 648 parts per million; it can be seen that the proven storage range is quite wide; more importantly, the smallest data here is also possible. Above the standard of damaging the liver and other organs or tissues. One of the most insidious properties of DDT and its ilk is the way in which they are passed from one organism to another through all the links in the food chain.For example, DDT powder is sprinkled in the alfalfa field; then such alfalfa is used as chicken feed; the eggs laid by chickens contain DDT.Or take hay, for example, which contains 7-8 parts per million of DDT residues, which may be used to feed cows; the DDT content in milk will be about 3 parts per million, and in the cream made from this milk, DDT content will increase to 65%. Through such a transfer process, the original content of DDT was very small, and then it was concentrated and gradually increased.The Food and Drug Department does not allow interstate commerce shipments of milk with pesticide residues, but farmers today are finding it difficult to obtain uncontaminated forage for their cows.Toxins may also be passed from mother to child.Pesticide residues have been found by Food and Drug Administration scientists in human milk samples.This means that the human-fed baby is receiving a small but constant supply, in addition to the toxic drug that has built up in his body.However, this is by no means the baby's first exposure to poisoning—there's every reason to believe that his struggles began while he was still in the womb.In experimental animals, chlorinated hydrocarbon drugs freely cross the barrier of the placenta.The placenta has traditionally been a shield within the mother's body that shields the embryo from harmful substances.Although the amount absorbed in this way by an infant is usually small, it is not unimportant because infants are much more sensitive to toxicity than adults.This situation also means that today, the average human being almost certainly begins his life with his first stockpile of this—an ever-increasing drug burden (and his body is required to carry it ever since). All of these facts—the storage of harmful drugs even at substandard levels, with consequent accumulation; Scientists declared as early as 1950 that "the potential danger of DDT has probably been underestimated".Nothing like this has happened in the history of medicine.After all, what will happen to its enlightenment, no one knows. Chlordane—another chlorinated hydrocarbon—has all of these nasty properties of DDT, plus a few that are unique of its own.Its residue can persist for a long time in oil, in food, or on the surface of things on which it might be applied.It enters the body by all available routes; it can be absorbed through the skin, it can be inhaled as a spray or powder; of course if its residue is swallowed, it is absorbed from the digestive tract.Like all other chlorinated hydrocarbons; chlordane deposits build up in the body over time.A food containing as little as 2.5 parts per million of chlordane eventually led to an increase in chlordane stores in the fat of experimental animals to 75 parts per million. Experienced pharmacologists such as Dr. Lichmann described chlordane in 1950: "It is one of the most poisonous insecticides. Anyone who touches it will be poisoned." Ignoring this warning, they have no qualms about infiltrating chlordane into lawn treatment powders.At that time, the suburban residents did not get sick immediately, so it seems that the problem is not serious, but the toxin can be latent in the human body for a long time, and it will show up irregularly after several months or years. the cause.But sometimes, death strikes quickly.One victim who accidentally spilled a 25 percent industrial solution on the skin developed symptoms of poisoning within forty minutes and died before medical help could be obtained.It is impossible to detect this kind of poisoning in advance and notify the medical staff to rescue it in time. Heptachlor is one of the components of chlordane, which is commonly used in the city as an independent technical term.It has the special ability to be stored in fat.If the content in the food is as small as only one ten-millionth, there will be heptachlor in the body.It also has a strange ability to change into a chemically different substance called epoxy heptachlor.It will produce this change in the soil, and in the tissues of plants and animals.Tests on birds showed that the epoxy resulting from this change was more toxic than the original drug, which was already four times more toxic than chlordane. As far back as the mid-1930s, a particular hydrocarbon, chlorinated naphthalenes, was discovered, which caused hepatitis disease and a rare and almost incurable liver disease in people exposed to occupational drug exposure.They have caused sickness and death in electrical workers; and more recently in agriculture they have been recognized as the source of a mysterious and often fatal disease in cattle.Given the precedent, it is not surprising that the three insecticides that are nepotistic to this group of hydrocarbons are among the most toxic of all hydrocarbons.These insecticides are dieldrin (oxochloromethanal), aldrin (chloromethanal) and endrin. Dieldrin (named in honor of the German chemist Diels) is about five times as toxic as DDT when swallowed, but as toxic as DDT when its solution is absorbed through the skin forty times.It gained notoriety for causing rapid onset of illness in its victims and for having dire effects on the nervous system—making patients go into convulsions.The recovery of such poisoned persons is very slow, which is enough to indicate its long-lasting chronic effect.As with other chlorinated hydrocarbons, these long-term effects severely damage the liver.Dieldrin's long-lasting residual and insecticidal properties make it one of the most widely used insecticides at present, regardless of its consequences - the terrible destruction of wildlife that follows its application.In tests on quail and pheasant, it proved to be about forty to fifty times more toxic than DDT. There are large gaps in our knowledge of how dieldrin is stored or distributed in the body, or how it is excreted: for the inventiveness of scientists in inventing insecticides has long outstripped knowledge of how these poisons harm living organisms. knowledge of biology.However, there are various indications that these poisons have been stored in the human body for a long time-here, the deposits are dormant like a dormant volcano, only to burst out suddenly when the body absorbs fat and accumulates it to the period of physiological stress.Much of what we really know has been learned the hard way through the World Health Organization's antimalarial campaign.As soon as dieldrin replaced DDT in malaria control efforts (to which the anopheles mosquitoes had become resistant), cases of poisoning among sprayers began to appear.The onset of symptoms was violent - from convulsions in half to all (different work procedures, symptoms of intoxication) of the victims, and several deaths.Some people did not have convulsions until four months had elapsed since the last poisoning. Aldrin is a somewhat mysterious substance because although it exists as a separate entity, it is closely related to dieldrin.When you pull carrots out of an aldrin-treated nursery, they contain dieldrin residues.This change occurs in living body tissue as well as in soil.This alchemical transformation has given rise to many false reports, for if a chemist, knowing that aldrin has been applied, came to test for its presence, he would be deceived into thinking that all aldrin The residual poison has been exorcised.And the residual poisons are still there, but they are dieldrin, which needs to be tested differently. Like dieldrin, aldrin is extremely poisonous.It causes degenerative lesions in the liver and kidneys.A dose the size of an aspirin tablet is enough to kill more than 400 quail.Many cases of human poisoning have been documented, most of them related to industrial administration. Aldrin, like most of this group of insecticides, casts a menacing shadow over the future—the shadow of sterility.Pheasant chickens fed insignificant doses, not sufficient to poison them, nevertheless laid only a few eggs; and the young that hatched from these eggs soon died.This effect is not limited to birds.Rats exposed to aldrin had reduced conception rates and their pups were sickly and short-lived.Pups born to treated bitches died within three months.The new generation always suffers in one way or another from the poisoning of its parent body.No one knows if the same effects will be seen in humans, but the drug has already been sprayed by aircraft over suburban areas and fields. Endrin is the most toxic of all chlorinated hydrocarbon drugs.Although the chemical properties are quite closely related to dieldrin, a slight twist in its molecular structure makes it five times as toxic as dieldrin.Endrin makes DDT—the granddaddy of all insecticides in this group—look almost harmless by comparison.It is fifteen times more toxic than DDT for mammals; twenty times for fish; and about three hundred times for some birds. During its ten years of use, endrin has killed huge numbers of fish, killed cattle strayed into sprayed orchards, and contaminated well water, prompting at least one state health department to sternly warn It is said that the careless use of endrin is endangering human life. In one of the most tragic cases of endrin poisoning, there was no apparent oversight; an effort was made to take precautions that were apparently considered adequate.There was a one-year-old American child whose parents took him to live in Venezuela.Cockroaches were found in the house they moved into, and they were sprayed with endrin a few days later.The baby was taken outside, along with the small family dog, before the spraying began around nine o'clock one morning.Floors were also scrubbed after spraying.In the afternoon the baby and puppy were back in the room.An hour or so later the puppy vomited, went into convulsions and died.At ten o'clock that night, the baby also vomited, went into convulsions and lost consciousness.Since that life-threatening exposure to endrin, the normally robust child had become almost like a wooden man—seeing, not seeing; hearing, not hearing; muscle spasms; The surrounding environment is isolated.Months of treatment in a New York hospital failed to change the condition or bring hope of improvement.The attending physician reported, "It is extremely difficult to predict whether any beneficial degree of recovery will occur." The second largest class of pesticides, the alkyl and organophosphates, are among the most toxic in the world.The first and most obvious danger accompanying its use is that persons applying the spray, either occasionally following the wind-blown mist, the plants covered with it, or the discarded container Acutely poisoned in persons exposed.In Florida, two children died shortly thereafter when they found an empty bag and used it to repair a swing, and three of their little friends fell ill.The bag had been used to hold an insecticide called parathion (l605), an organic phosphate; tests confirmed the death was caused by parathion poisoning.Another time two Wisconsin kids (cousins) one was playing in the yard while his father was spraying potatoes with parathion and the mist drifted in from an adjoining field and the other followed him The father ran playfully into the barn, held his hand for a moment over the nozzle of the sprayer, was also poisoned, and both children died that same night. There is some irony in the origins of these insecticides.Although some of the drugs themselves—organic esters of phosphoric acid—have been known for years, their insecticidal properties were not discovered until the late 1930s by a German chemist, Gerhard Schrader.Almost immediately the German government recognized the value of these drugs of the same kind: new and destructive weapons in man's war against man himself; and the work on their development was declared secret.Some drugs became deadly derangement gases; others, with close siblings, became insecticides. Organophosphate insecticides act on living organisms in a peculiar way.They have the ability to destroy enzymes -- enzymes that perform essential functions in the body.These insecticides target the nervous system, regardless of whether the victim is an insect or a warm-blooded animal.Normally, a nerve impulse is sent from nerve to nerve by means of a "chemical transmitter" called acetylcholine; acetylcholine is a substance that performs an essential function and then disappears.Indeed, the survival of this substance is so rapid that even medical researchers (without special measures) are unable to sample it for testing before the body destroys it.Transient nature of this transmitter is necessary for the normal function of the body.If this acetylcholine is not destroyed immediately when a nerve impulse passes through, the impulse will continue to pass along one nerve after another, and at this time this substance will do its best in an unprecedentedly more intensified way, making the whole body Movements became uncoordinated: tremors, muscle cramps, fainting spells, and death soon followed. This contingency has been prepared for by the body.A protective enzyme called cholinesterase destroys the transmitter whenever the body no longer needs it.By this means a precise regulation was achieved and the body never accumulated dangerous levels of acetylcholine.However, upon contact with organophosphate insecticides, the protective enzymes are destroyed.And when the level of this enzyme is reduced, the level of the conductive substance builds up.In this role, organophosphorus compounds are similar to the alkaloid poison muscarine (found in the poisonous mushroom Muscarina). Frequent exposure to drugs will reduce the level of cholinesterase until a person is on the verge of acute poisoning, and a very slight injury from this edge can push him out of the poisoning zone. abyss.For this reason, it is considered important to have regular blood tests of spray operators and others at constant risk of poisoning. Parathion is one of the most versatile organophosphates.It is also one of the most potent and dangerous drugs.Upon contact with it, the bees became "frantically agitated and belligerent", made frantic scratching movements, and were nearly dead within half an hour.A chemist, trying to learn the dose that would be highly toxic to humans by as direct a means as possible, swallowed a tiny amount of the drug, approximately equal to 0.00424 taels.Paralysis followed so quickly that he could not even reach the antidote he had prepared in advance; and so he died.It is said that parathion is now the most preferred suicide drug in Finland.In recent years, California has reported an average of more than 200 accidental parathion poisonings every year.In many parts of the world, the death rate from parathion is appalling: in 1958 there were 100 fatal cases in India, 67 in Syria; in Japan an average of 336 cases per year People were poisoned to death. Yet some seven million pounds or so of parathion are now being applied to American fields or gardens—by hand-operated sprayers, electric blowers, dusters, and airplanes.According to one medical authority, the amount used on California farms alone could "provide a lethal dose to five to ten times the world's population." One of the reasons we are in rare cases protected from this drug is that parathion and other drugs of this class break down rather quickly.Therefore, compared with chlorinated hydrocarbons, their residues on crops are relatively short-lived.However, they last long enough to be anything from just severely poisoned to fatal.In Riverside, California, eleven of thirty citrus pickers became seriously ill and all but one had to be hospitalized with symptoms typical of parathion poisoning.The orange groves had been sprayed with parathion about two and a half weeks earlier; the residues had persisted for sixteen to nineteen days.As a result, the orange pickers fell into the pain of retching, half-blind, and half-conscious.And this is by no means a record of its duration.A similar accident occurred in the orange grove sprayed a month ago, and after six months of treatment with the standard dose, the residual poison of the drug was found in the peel of the oranges. The extreme danger to all workers applying organophosphorus insecticides in fields, orchards, and vineyards has led to the establishment of laboratories in some of the states where these drugs are used—where physicians can perform diagnostic and medical relief.Even doctors themselves are at some risk unless they wear rubber gloves when handling poisoned patients.A washerwoman washing her benefactor's clothes is also at risk—they may have enough parathion attached to them to harm her. Malathion, another organophosphate, is almost as familiar to the public as DDT; it is widely used by gardeners, and is also commonly used in household pest control, spraying mosquitoes, and for the general extermination of insects , such as: Some communities in Florida used to spray nearly a million acres of land to eliminate a type of Mediterranean fruit fly.Malathion is considered the least toxic of this class of drugs; many people assume that they can be used freely and without fear of harm.Commercials are also encouraging this reassuring attitude. Claims of malathion's "safety" are based on fairly dangerous grounds, although this is not discovered until (as often happens) the drug has been in use for several years.Malathion is "safe" only because the liver of mammals - an organ with extraordinary protective powers - renders it harmless when sprayed on the ground.Its detoxification is done by an enzyme in the liver.However, if something destroys this enzyme or interferes with its activity, then a person exposed to malathion is exposed to the full onslaught of the toxin. Unfortunately for all of us, the opportunities for this to happen are all too common.Just this afternoon, a group of Food and Drug Administration scientists discovered that when malathion was administered together with certain other organophosphates, severe poisoning occurred--up to 50% of the predicted severe toxicity. times; this prediction is based on the toxicity of the two drugs added together.In other words, when the two drugs are mixed, 1% of the lethal dose of each compound can produce a fatal effect. This discovery led to trials of other chemical combinations.It is now known that, through the action of compounding, the toxicity is increased or "enhanced", and many, many paraphosphate insecticides are very dangerous.Potentiation of toxicity appears to occur when one compound destroys the liver enzyme responsible for detoxifying the other.A two-pronged approach with two compounds is not necessary.The risk of poisoning exists not only for the person who might spray one insect spray one week and another the next; it also exists for the user of the spray.A mixture of two phospholipid insecticides can easily appear in a typical cold dish; this interaction will occur within the legally permitted levels of residues. The full extent of this dangerous chemical-drug interaction is still poorly understood, yet these startling new discoveries are constantly pouring out of scientific laboratories.One of these is the discovery that the toxicity of one phosphate ester can be enhanced by a second agent (which doesn't have to be an insecticide).For example, using one plasticizer may have a stronger effect than another pesticide, making malathion more dangerous.Again, this is because it inhibits the action of the liver enzymes that normally pull out the "fangs" of pesticides. What about other chemicals in the normal human environment?What about medicines in particular?What has been done on this is only the beginning; but certain organophosphates (parathion and malathion) are known to enhance the toxicity of certain medicines used as muscle relaxants, while several others Esters (again including malathion) significantly increased the sleeping time of barbiturates. In Greek mythology, the female Maizedi was furious because a rival had taken away the love of her husband Jason, so she gave her bride a magical robe.The bride died instantly while wearing this gown.This method of indirect lethality now finds its counterpart in drugs called "systemic insecticides."这些是有着非凡特质的化工药物，这些特质被用来将植物或动物转变为一种米荻长袍式的东西——使它们居然成了有毒的了。这样做，其目的是：杀死那些可能与它们接触的昆虫，特别是当它们吮吸植物之汁液或动物之血液时。 内吸杀虫剂(特指将药剂吸入动植物全身的组织里而使昆虫等外界接触物中毒者——译注)世界是一个难想象的奇异世界，它超出了格林兄弟的想象力——或许与查理·亚当斯的漫画世界极为近乎同类。它是个这样的世界，在这里童话中富于魅力的森林已变成了有毒的森林——这儿昆虫嘴嚼一片树叶或吮吸一株植物的津液就注定要死亡。它是这样一个世界、在这里跳蚤叮咬了狗，就会死去，因为狗的血液已被变为有毒的了；这里昆虫会死于它从未触犯过的植物所散发出来的水汽；这里蜜蜂会将有毒的花蜜带回至蜂房里，结果也必然酿出有毒的蜂蜜来。 昆虫学家的关于内部自生杀虫剂的梦幻终于得以证实了，这是在实用昆虫学领域的工人们觉察到，他们从大自然那儿能够领会到一点暗示：他们发现在含有硒酸钠的土壤里生长的麦子，曾免遭蚜虫及红蜘蛛的侵袭。硒，一种自然生成的元素，在世界许多地方的岩石及土壤里均有小量的发现，这样就成了第一种内吸杀虫剂。 使得一种杀虫剂成为全身毒性(内吸)药物的是这样一种能力——它鲲渗透到一棵植物或一个动物的全部组织内并使之有毒。这一属性为氯化烃类的某些药物和有机磷类的其他一些药物所具有；这些药物大部分是用人工合成法产生出来的，也有由一定的自然生成物所产生的。然而，在实际应用中多数内吸杀虫药物是从有机磷类提取出来的，因为这样处理残毒的问题就有点不那么尖锐了。 内吸杀虫药还以别的迂回方式发生效用。此药若施用于种子——或者浸泡或与碳混合而涂盖一层，它们就把其效用扩展到下列植物的后代体内，且长出对蚜虫及其他吮吸类昆虫有毒的幼苗来。一些蔬菜如豌豆、菜豆、甜菜有时就是这样受到保护的。外面复有一层内吸杀虫剂的棉籽已在加里福尼亚州使用一段时间了；在这个州，1959年曾有二十五个农场工人在圣柔昆峡谷植棉时突然发病，由于用手拿着处理过的种子口袋所致。 在英格兰，曾有人想知道当蜜蜂从内吸药剂处理过的植物上采了花蜜之后会发生什么样的情况。对此，曾在以一种叫做八甲磷的药物处理过的地区作了调查。尽管那些植物是在其花还未成形以前喷过药的，而后来生成的花蜜内却含有此种毒质。结果呢，如可以预测到的一样，这些蜂所酿之蜜也是八甲磷染污了的。 动物的内吸毒剂的使用主要地集中在控制牛蛆方面。牛蛆是牲畜的一种破坏性寄生虫。为了在宿主的血液及组织里造成杀虫功效而又不致引起危及生命的毒性，必须十分小心才行。这个平衡关系是很微妙的，政府的兽医先生们业已发现：频繁的小剂量用药也能逐渐耗尽一个动物体内的保护性酶胆碱脂酶的供应；因此，若无预先告诫的话，多加一点儿很微的剂量，便将引起中毒。 许多强有力的迹象表明，与我们的日常生活更为密切的新天地正在开辟出来。现在，你可以给你的狗吃上一粒丸药，据称此药将使得它的血被有毒而除去身上的跳蚤。在对牛畜的处理中所发现的危险情况也大概会出现在对狗的处理中。到目前，看来尚未有人提出过这样的建议——做人的内吸杀虫试验；它将使得我们(体内的毒性)能致死蚊子；也许这就是下一步的工作了。 至此，这一章里我们一直在研讨对昆虫之战所使用的致死药物。而我们同时进行的杂草之战又怎样呢？ 要求得一种速效、容易的方法——以灭除不需要的草木——之愿望便导致产生了一大群不断增加着的化学药物，它们通称为除莠剂，或以不太正式的说法，叫做除草药。关于这些药物是怎样使用及怎样误用的记述，将在第六章里讲到；而这里同我们有关的问题是，这些除草剂是否是毒药，以及它们的使用是否促成了对环境的毒染。 关于除草剂仅仅对草木植物有毒、故对动物的生命不构成什么威胁的传说，已得到广泛的传播，可惜这并非真实。这些除草剂包罗了种类繁多的化工药物，它们除对植物有效外，对动物组织也起作用。这些药物在对于有机体的作用上差异甚大。有些是一般性的毒药；有些是新陈代谢的特效刺激剂，会引起体温致命地升高；有的药物(单独地或与别种药物一起)招致恶性瘤；有些则伤害生物种属的遗传质、引起基因(遗传因子)的变种。这样看来，除草剂如同杀虫剂一样，包括着一些十分危险的药物；粗心地使用这些药物——以为它们是“安全的”，就可能招致灾难性的后果。 尽管出自实验室内的川流不息的新药物竟相争先，而含砷化合物仍然大肆使用看，既用作杀虫剂(如前所述)，也用作除草剂，这里它们通常以亚砷酸钠的化学形式出现。它们的应用史是不能令人安然于怀的。作为路旁使用的喷雾剂，它们已使不知多少个农民失去了奶牛，还杀死了无数个野生动物；作为湖泊、水库的水中除草剂，它们已使公共水域不宜饮用，甚至也不宜于游泳了；作为施到马铃薯田里以毁掉藤蔓的喷雾药剂，它们已使得人类和非人类付出了生命的代价。 在英格兰，上述后一种用途约在1951年有了发展，这是由于缺少硫酸的结果；以前是用硫酸来烧掉土豆蔓的。农业部曾认为有必要对进入喷过含砷剂的农田之危险予以警告，可是这种警告牛畜是听不懂的，(野兽及鸟类也听不懂——我们必须这样假定。)有关牛畜的含砷喷剂中毒的报道单调地经常性地传来。当通过饮用砷染污了的水，死神也来到一位农妇头上的时候，一家主要的英国化学公司(在1959年)停止了生产含砷喷雾剂，而且回收了已在商贩手中的所供给的药物。此后不久，农业部宣布：因为对人和牛畜的高度危险性，在亚砷酸盐的使用方面将予以限制。在1961年，澳大利亚政府也宣布了类似的禁令。然而，在美国却没有这种限令来阻止这些毒物的使用。 某些“二硝基”化合物也被用作除草剂。它们被定为美国现用的这一类型的最危险的物质之一。二硝基酚是一种强烈的代谢兴奋剂。鉴于此种原因，它曾一度被用作减轻体重的药物，可是减重的剂量与需要起中毒或药杀作用的剂量之间的界限却是细微的——竟如此之细微，以致在这种减重药物最后停用之前已使几位病人死亡，还有许多人遭受了永久性的伤害。 有一种同属的药物——五氯苯酚，有时称为“五氯酚”，也是既用作杀虫剂，也用作除草剂的，它常常被喷撒在铁路沿线及荒芜地区。五氯酚对于从细菌到人类这样多种多样的有机体的毒性是极强的。像二硝基药物一样，它干扰着(往往是致命地干扰)体内的能源，以致于受害的机体近乎(简直是)在烧毁自己。它的可怖的毒性在加里福尼亚州卫生局最近报告的致命惨祸中得到了具体说明。有一位油槽汽车司机，把柴油与五氯苯酚混合在一起，配制一种棉花落叶剂。当他正从油桶内汲出此浓缩药物之际，桶栓意外地倾落了回去。他就赤手伸了进去把桶拴复至原位。尽管他当即就洗净了手，还是得了急病，次日就死去了。 一些除草剂——诸如亚砷酸钠或者酚类药物——的后果大都昭然易见，而另外一些除草剂的效用却是格外地隐伏为善的。例如，当今驰名的红莓(一种蔓越桔)除草药氨基三唑，被定为相对的轻毒性药物。但是归根结蒂它的引起甲状腺恶性瘤的趋向，对于野生动物，恐怕也对人类都可能是大有深长意味的。 除草剂中还有一些药物划归为“致变物”，或曰能够改变基因——司遗传之物质——的作用剂。辐射造成遗传性影响，使得我们大大吃了一惊；那么，对于我们在周围环境中广为散播的化学药物的同样作用，我们又怎么能掉以轻心呢？