Sense and non-sense in toxicity assessment of medicinal products

Publisher Summary Toxicology is the science of chemically induced harmful effects to humans, the domestic animals or plants of humans, or the web of nature at large. Toxicology is a subdiscipline of natural science and should ideally not beget nonsense. Toxicology has developed like other life sciences along positivist lines and with an increasing speed. Especially in the last half of this century, toxicology grew in response to the requirements of industrial hygiene and industrial production of synthetic raw materials and pharmaca. Therefore, toxicology started sharing responsibility for the social implications (industrial medicine, public health) of the expansion of chemical industry and the use of its products.