P. D. Lawley
1990
Citations
3
Influential Citations
41
Citations
Journal
Journal name not available for this finding
Abstract
The N-nitroso compounds fall into the category of carcinogens discovered through proposed industrial use (Barnes 1974). In the early 1950s the then Director of the Medical Research Council’s Toxicology Research Unit, the late Dr. J.M.Barnes, was asked by Dr. H.Swaffield to investigate possible toxic hazards from the proposed use of a presumed relatively biologically inert, water- miscible, organic solvent, N-nitrosodimethylamine, (CH3)2N.NO (often referred to as dimethylnitrosamine; the systematic nomenclature is N-methyl-N-nitroso-methanamine). The stimulus was the finding by Dr. Swaffield that two men who had worked with this “new solvent” in a pilot plant had contracted cirrhosis of the liver.