Carbolic Acid
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Carbolic Acid. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
Important: Safety Warning
This page gives first-aid or emergency advice that predates modern medicine and can make an emergency worse. Do not follow it. In any medical emergency, call emergency services and follow current first-aid guidance.
In addition, this page directs the use of hazardous substances — such as benzine, gasoline, lye, or strong acids — for household tasks. These materials are highly flammable, corrosive, or poisonous, and the practices described have caused fires, burns, and poisonings.
In addition, this page presents medical treatment from an era before modern medicine. The remedies described are ineffective against the conditions named, and some of the ingredients or doses are harmful. Do not use them to treat any illness; consult a qualified medical professional.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
a well known compound of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. In the pure state, it takes the form of white crystalline needles. Ordinarily it is a liquid somewhat heavier than water, and having a slightly acid taste. It is obtained in the distillation of coal tar . Carbolic acid has many uses. It kills bacteria. Surgeons use a weak solution to sterilize their instruments and as an antiseptic dressing for wounds. Under medical advice it may be taken in minute quantities as a remedy. It is a rank poison. Two or three drops of pure carbolic acid are sufficient to cause death. It is terribly painful in its action. Alcohol is the best antidote. See Medicine
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
C₂H₂OH, also called Phenol, Phenic acid, Coal-tar, Creosote. Phenol is a secondary monatomic aromatic alcohol, obtained by the dry distillation of of salicylic sali acid. It is also formed by the dry distillation of coal, in the coal-tar oil. When pure it forms white deliquescent cent crystals melting at 35° to an oily liquid, which boils at 184°. It has a penetrating odor and burning taste; it is neutral; it coagulates albumen and has powerful antiseptic properties. It is used as a disinfectant, and to preserve meat, etc. It dissolves in alkalies, forming compounds called phenates. Potassium phenate crystallizes in white needles; when it is heated with iodides of ethyl, methyl, etc., double ethers are formed, as methylphenate, C.H.OCH3. Chlorine, bromine, iodine, and nitric acid form with it substitution compounds. Phenol is benzene with one molecule of (OH) substituted for one atom of H.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's advice that "alcohol is the best antidote" for carbolic acid poisoning was already doubtful in 1910 and is dangerous now: modern treatment is immediate copious washing of the skin (polyethylene glycol or water) and hospital supportive care, with no antidote to swallow. Lister's use of phenol as a wound antiseptic, which Aiton describes as routine surgical practice, was abandoned within a few decades in favour of sterile aseptic technique and gentler agents, because phenol destroys living tissue as readily as bacteria. Collier's derivation from coal tar in 1921 has also been overtaken: since the cumene (Hock) process was developed in the 1940s, the great bulk of the world's phenol has been made from benzene and propylene, and it is now a bulk feedstock for phenolic resins, nylon precursors and bisphenol A rather than a medicine. Phenol survives medicinally only in small doses, in throat sprays and lozenges and in dermatological peels and nerve blocks.
Written for this edition, 2026.