Carbolic acid
Where domestic disinfection began. A state health department rates it 4 for health — the top of its scale — and lists disinfectant among its uses in the same paragraph.
Precautions
- Wear gloves
- Wear eye protection
- Ventilate the area
- Keep away from children and pets
- Never mix with other cleaning products
In detail
Carbolic acid is phenol, and it is the substance that turned disinfection from a hospital theory into a household habit. Its adoption in surgery in the 1860s and its rapid arrival in domestic products — carbolic soap, carbolic disinfectant fluid — is the origin of the idea that a house can be made hygienic by applying a chemical to it. The regulator's own description places both halves side by side without comment: a colourless or white crystalline solid usually sold or used in solution, used to produce phenolic resins for the construction, automotive and appliance industries, as a disinfectant, and in medicines. The hazard banner is why it left domestic use rather than why it entered it. Health is rated 4, the top of the series' scale, and the sheet carries the word MUTAGEN. Its odour threshold is 0.4 parts per million, with the standing warning that odour is not a guide to exposure. This record exists for history and for terminology; CleaningHQ describes no domestic use for the substance, and a modern product sold under a carbolic name is a formulation whose contents its own label states.
Properties
- Chemical name
- Phenol
- pH
- Mildly acidic
Why
- Carbolic acid is explained by Cleaning, disinfecting and sterilising
- Carbolic acid is explained by Protein denaturation
The first surgical antiseptic worked by destroying protein, which is also why it destroys skin.
Sources for this page
Sources
Right to Know Hazardous Substance Fact Sheet: Phenol (RTK 1487)
New Jersey Department of Health, 2015 · Government or regulator
Relied on for: That phenol's synonym is carbolic acid, that it is used as a disinfectant and in medicines, that its health rating is 4 and it is listed as a mutagen, and that its odour threshold is 0.4 ppm. (states this directly)
Verification: a person has read the passage relied on.
Read on — The 'Description and Use' block and the hazard summary banner. Supports the claim as stated. Lets the history of disinfection be written with a substance behind it rather than a name, and lets the catalogue state plainly why carbolic disappeared from domestic products.
Last reviewed by a person on .