OVERVIEW

Increasingly, chemists and others are faced with legislation requiring assessment of hazard and risk associated with the production, use and disposal of chemicals. In addition, the general public are concerned about the dangers that they hear may result from the widespread use of chemicals. They look to chemists for explanations and assume that chemists understand such matters. When they find that chemists are ignorant of the potential of chemicals to cause harm, their confidence in the profession is lost and chemophobia may result. Thus, it has become essential to introduce toxicology into chemistry course. In order to facilitate this, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) Commission on Toxicology and the IUPAC Committee on the Teaching of Chemistry in 1993 began to draft a curriculum in fundamental toxicology for chemists and this textbook to support it. The curriculum is detailed below.

It will be seen that the chapter titles in this book are echoed in the suggested curriculum. The complete curriculum shown would provide a thorough basis in toxicology, but the 60 h suggested will be hard to find in any existing degree structure where the continuing increase in knowledge puts time at a premium. We therefore suggest that time be sought for a minimum curriculum consisting of Sections 1, 2, 5 and 7 taking about 30 student contact hours. This would correspond approximately to the traditional term at a British university or a half-semester in the American system. Alternatively, the minimum curriculum could be taught as...