Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

an insecticide, often being sprayed along railroad tracks and in waste areas. Penta is extremely
toxic to a wide variety of organisms from bacteria to man. Like the dinitros, it interferes, often
fatally, with the body’s s ource of energy, s o that the affected organism almost literally burns
itself up. Its fearful power is illustrated in a fatal accident recently reported by the California
Department of Health. A tank truck driver was preparing a cotton defoliant by mixing diesel oil
with pentachlorophe nol. As he was drawing the concentrate d chemical out of a drum, the
spigot accidentally toppled back. He reached in with his bare hand to regain the s pigot.
Although he was hed imme diately, he became acutely ill and died the next day.
While the res ults of weed killers s uch as s odium ars enite or the phenols are gross ly obvious ,
s ome other he rbicides are more ins idious in their effects. For example, the now famous
cranberry- weed killer aminotriazole, or amitrol, is rated as having relatively low toxicity. But in
the long run its tendency to caus e malignant tumors of the thyroid may be far more significant
for wildlife and perhaps also for man. Among the herbicides are some that are classified as
‘mutagens’, or agents capable of modifying the genes, the materials of heredity. We are rightly
appalled by the genetic effects of radiation; how then, can we be indifferent to the s ame effect
in chemicals that we disseminate widely in our environment?