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Value, The Amount of A Substance Per

This document discusses chemicals and toxicity, summarizing key points from two passages. It notes that while life involves risks, chemicals are evaluated for toxicity through animal testing. Factors like dosage levels and translation to human exposure make risk assessments challenging. Some chemicals like DDT were highly effective insecticides but were later banned due to environmental persistence and toxicity. Controlling insects is important due to a small percentage causing human diseases, though most insects are harmless or beneficial.

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48 views

Value, The Amount of A Substance Per

This document discusses chemicals and toxicity, summarizing key points from two passages. It notes that while life involves risks, chemicals are evaluated for toxicity through animal testing. Factors like dosage levels and translation to human exposure make risk assessments challenging. Some chemicals like DDT were highly effective insecticides but were later banned due to environmental persistence and toxicity. Controlling insects is important due to a small percentage causing human diseases, though most insects are harmless or beneficial.

Uploaded by

張湧浩
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Chemicals, Toxicity, and Risk (Organic Chemistry, 6th ed., John McMurry, Thomson, 2004, p.

20-21)

We hear and read a lot these days about the dangers of “chemicals”—about pesticide
residues, toxic wastes, unsafe medicines, and so forth. What’s a person to believe?
這些日子以來，我們聽到並讀到很多有關“化學物質”的危險的信息，例如農藥殘留，
有毒廢物，不安全的藥物等等。 我們該相信誰？

Life is not risk-free; we all take many risks each day. We decide to ride a bike rather than
drive, even though there is a ten times greater likelihood per mile of dying in a bicycling
accident than in a car. We decide to walk down stairs rather than take an elevator, even
though 7000 people die from falls each year in the United States.
生活不是沒有風險的； 我們每一天都冒著很多風險。 儘管騎車事故中每英里死亡的可
能性比汽車中死亡的可能性大十倍，但我們還是決定騎自行車而不是開車。 即使在美國
每年有 7000 人死於跌倒，我們還是決定走下樓梯而不乘電梯。

We decide to smoke cigarettes, even though it increases our chance of getting cancer by 50%.
Making judgments that affect our health is something we do routinely without even thinking
about it.
我們決定抽煙，即使它使我們患癌症的機會增加了 50％。 做出影響我們健康的判斷是我
們日常要做的事情，甚至沒有考慮它。

What about risks from chemicals? Risk evaluations of chemicals is carried out by exposing
test animals (usually rats) to the chemical and then monitoring for signs of harm. To limit the
expense and time needed, the amounts administered are hundreds or thousands of times
greater than those a person might normally encounter.
化學品帶來的風險如何？ 化學品的風險評估是通過將測試動物（通常為大老鼠）暴露於該
化學品中，然後監測其危害跡象來進行的。 為了限制所需的費用和時間，管理的金額是
一個人通常可能遇到的金額的數百倍或數千倍。

Data are then reduced to a single number called an LD50 value, the amount of a substance per
kilogram body weight that is lethal to 50% of the test animals. For example, the LD50 of
arsenic trioxide is 0.015 g/kg whereas that of aspirin is 1.1 g/kg. The lower the value, the
more toxic the substance.
然後將數據減少到一個稱為 LD50 值的單一數字，即每公斤體重的一種物質的量，對 50％
的測試動物具有致命性。 例如，三氧化二砷的 LD50 為 0.015 g / kg，而阿司匹林的 LD50 為
1.1 g / kg。 值越低，物質的毒性越大。
Even with animal data available, risk is still hard to assess. If a substance is harmful to
animals, is it necessarily harmful to humans? How can a large dose for a small animal be
translated into a small dose for a large human?
即使有動物數據，風險仍然很難評估。 如果某種物質對動物有害，是否一定對人類有害？
小動物的大劑量如何轉化為大人類的小劑量？

All substances are toxic to some organisms to some extent, and the difference between help
and harm is often a matter of degree. Vitamin A, for example, is necessary for vision, yet it
can cause cancer at high dosages. Arsenic trioxide is the most classic of poisons, yet recent
work has shown it to be effective at inducing remissions in some types of leukemia.
所有物質對某些生物都有一定程度的毒性，幫助與傷害之間的區別通常取決於程度。 例
如，維生素 A 對於視力是必不可少的，但高劑量會導致癌症。 三氧化二砷是最經典的毒
藥，但最近的研究表明，三氧化二砷可有效誘導某些類型的白血病緩解。

Furthermore, how we evaluate risk is strongly influenced by familiarity. Many foods contain
natural ingredients far more toxic than synthetic additives or pesticide residues, but the
ingredients are ignored because the foods are familiar.
此外，我們如何評估風險受熟悉程度的強烈影響。 許多食物所含的天然成分比合成添
加劑或農藥殘留的毒性要大得多，但是由於這些食物是熟悉的，因此這些成分被忽略了。

All decisions involve tradeoffs. Does the benefit of increased food production outweigh
possible health risks of a pesticide? Do the beneficial effects of a new drug outweigh a
potentially dangerous side effect to a tiny fraction of users? The answers are rarely obvious,
but we should at least try to base our responses on facts rather than emotions.
所有決定都涉及權衡。 增加糧食產量的好處是否超過了殺蟲劑可能帶來的健康風險？
對一小部分使用者來說，新藥的益處是否超過潛在的危險副作用？ 答案很少是顯而易見
的，但是我們至少應該嘗試基於事實而非情感來做出回應。

Insect Control (From Essentials of Organic Chemistry, Robert Boxer, WCB, 1997, p. 267)

Many insects of the world are harmless or useful to humans. The ladybug, for example, has a
wonderful appetite for a wide variety of small insect pests. Bees are a source of honey and
pollinate flowering plants. Insects represent a major source of food for many creatures: birds,
fish, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals.
世界上許多昆蟲對人類無害或有用。 例如，瓢蟲對各種各樣的小蟲害有很好的食慾。
蜜蜂是蜂蜜和授粉開花植物的來源。 昆蟲是許多生物的主要食物來源：鳥類，魚類，兩棲
動物，爬行動物和哺乳動物。

Only 0.1% of bugs in the world are harmful to humans, but they pack quite a wallop.
Diseases such as typhus, typhoid, malaria, sleeping sickness, yellow fever, plague, and
dengue fever are transmitted by insects. Fire ants can injure or kill livestock with their sting,
while the stinger of the wasp and bee is as annoying as ever to both humans and beasts. The
southern pine beetle is devastating our forests along with the gypsy moth.
只有 0.1％的小蟲子對人體有害，但他們有相當大的衝擊力。 如斑疹傷寒，傷寒，瘧疾，昏睡
病，黃熱病，鼠疫和登革熱等疾病是通過昆蟲傳播的。 火蟻可能會因刺傷而傷害或殺死
牲畜，而黃蜂和蜜蜂的毒刺對人類和野獸一樣令人討厭。 南部的松甲蟲與吉普賽蛾一起
毀滅了我們的森林。

Of particular concern is the success of a wide variety of pests in eating or destroying our
crops. From the army worm to the grasshopper and the Japanese beetle to the boll weevil, our
farmers are finding it more and more difficult to eradicate the insects that harm our crops—
both in the field and in storage.
特別令人關注的是，各種各樣的害蟲在成功的食用或破壞我們的農作物。 從軍用蠕蟲到
蝗蟲，從日本甲蟲到棉鈴象鼻蟲，我們的農民發現在田間和儲藏中消除危害我們農作物的
昆蟲越來越困難。

Insect control has been attempted for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks and Romans
used sulfur to eliminate pests from crops, while the Chinese employed arsenic sulfide.
Tobacco, pyrethrum, rotenone, and a number of synthetic insecticides were used at various
times from 1600 to 1942 with varying degrees of success.
控制昆蟲已經嘗試了數千年。 古希臘人和羅馬人使用硫來消除農作物中的害蟲，而中國
人則使用硫化砷。 從 1600 年到 1942 年的不同時間，使用了煙草，除蟲菊，魚藤酮和許多
合成殺蟲劑，並得到了不同程度的成果。

A gigantic breakthrough occurred in 1942 when dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT for


short) was found to do a marvelous job of killing insects. DDT was the first of an army of
insecticides that went into action during World War II. The compound killed big chunks of
the bug population cheaply and thus kept a number of infectious diseases under control and
made it possible for farmers to have a bountiful harvest year after year.
1942 年，當發現二氯二苯基三氯乙烷（簡稱 DDT）在殺死昆蟲方面做得非常出色時，發生
了巨大的突破。 DDT 是第二次世界大戰期間投入行動的殺蟲劑部隊中的第一支。 這
種化合物廉價地殺死了大批蟲子，從而控制了許多傳染病，使農民年成功恢復一年地豐收。
Unfortunately, after years of spraying tons of DDT on the land, scientist found that insects
were becoming immune, and more expensive insecticides had to be developed. Active use of
DDT as an insecticide in the United States was terminated when the EPA banned DDT as
possibly being carcinogenic to humans. To make matters worse, it was discovered that DDT
remained in the environment to be ingested by animals and fish and, ultimately, to be found
in increasing amounts in fat cells of human beings. DDT persists in the environment for so
long a time because most microorganisms cannot degrade halogenated aromatic compounds.
不幸的是，在陸地上噴灑了數噸 DDT 之後，科學家發現昆蟲變得免疫，因此必須開發更昂
貴的殺蟲劑。 當 EPA 發現 DDT 可能對人類致癌時，終止了在美國積極使用 DDT 作為殺蟲
劑。 更糟的是，人們發現 DDT 存在於動物和魚類吸收的環境中，最終在人類的脂肪細胞
中發現的量越來越多。 DDT 在環境中持續了很長時間，因為大多數微生物無法降解鹵代
芳族化合物。

One possible way to solve this problem involves the use of a white rot fungus,
Phanerochaete chrysosporium, which when starved for nitrogen, produces an enzyme that
degrades DDT to carbon dioxide, chloride ion, and water.
解決此問題的一種可能方法涉及使用白腐真菌 Phanerochaete chrysosporium，當缺少氮
時，該酵素會產生將 DDT 降解為二氧化碳，氯離子和水的酵素。

pesticide residues 農藥殘留，


toxic 有毒
greater likelihood 更大的可能性
smoke cigarettes 抽煙
evaluations 評估
Dosages 劑量
Arsenic trioxide 三氧化二砷
leukemia 白血病
tradeoffs 權衡
appetite 食慾
Typhus 斑疹傷寒
Typhoid 傷寒
Malaria 瘧疾
sleeping sickness 昏睡病
yellow fever 黃熱病
plague 鼠疫
dengue fever 登革熱
Of particular concern 特別關注
army worm 軍用蠕蟲
grasshopper 蝗蟲
boll weevil 棉鈴象鼻蟲
sulfur 硫
arsenic sulfide 硫化砷
Tobacco 煙草
Pyrethrum 除蟲菊
rotenone 魚藤酮
dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane 二氯二苯基三氯乙烷
Unfortunately 不幸的是
spraying 噴灑
microorganisms 微生物
fungus 真菌

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