[gtmitchell]

A generation ago or two ago, it was common for chemists to use taste and smell as a tools for qualitative evaluation of chemical compounds.

So older scientific literature is full of all sorts of knowledge that was obtained in ways that are shockingly unsafe by modern standards, including gems like the taste of all sorts of poisons and how large quantities of plutonium are warm to the touch.

[refurb]

Even as a chemist today you get to recognize the smells of chemicals even if barely exposed.

It's typically only the most toxic that you’d use such equipment to not be exposed at all (but then we tend to avoid those anyways).

You start to recognize the smell of ethers like diethyl ether or tetrahydrofuran (which I love the smell of). Sulfides are obvious (smell terrible).

I made a mistake a couple times smelling things I shouldn’t.

Once was diazomethane gas - a potent akylating agent and explosive. I instinctively put the roundbottom flask to my nose to smell, but realized after how dumb it was. No idea if i heavily alkylated my nasal passage epithelial cells or not, but no side effects.

The other time was a brominated aryl compound similar to tear gas. That was amazingly painful and felt like getting wasabi up my nose despite there being almost nothing left in the flask.

One time which wasn't intention was smelling CbzCl (benzyl chloroformate, a reagent used to add a protecting group to nitrogens). I didn't intentionall smell it, but measured it outside the fume hood in a syringe. It smells pretty awful, but what I realize is that the molecule must bind to your nasal passages (proteins have lots of nitrogens) because I could smell it for the next 24 hours. After smelling it that long, the smell now makes me nauseous pretty quickly.

[euroderf]

As a kid I had a Lionel chemistry set. It had a chunk of sulfur that I lit up with a match. Then, curious, I took a deep snork.

Mistake!

Only a few years later in chem class did a teacher show how to use your hand to waft fumes from an open beaker or flask so that you can catch a tiny whiff.

[Ntrails]

A friend of mine works as a chemist in waste disposal and I reckon a shallow sniff is a pretty common first line tool for identification / confirmation. I doubt it is ideal, but nobody would lie too much about what is in that barrel right..?

[Bluestein]

> tetrahydrofuran (which I love the smell of).

May I ask what it smells like?

[refurb]

It would be hard to describe.

It's a low boiling point oxygenated hydrocarbon solvent, so it smells like you'd expect - think things like rubbing alcohol, ethanol (vodka), paint thinner (the ones that have alcohols in them).

Diethyl ether smells very "heavy", for lack of a better word, and pungent. It's almost overpowering, and can become unpleasant after a while.

Tetrahydrofuran (which is just diethyl ether with both ends of the ethyl groups bonded to form a ring) has a "lighter" smell, isn't overpowering and smells "clean" to me. It's still a oxygenated solvent, so it's not pleasant like the smell of flowers or spices, but to me it's more similar to ethanol which is relatively pleasant.

[Aloha]

Sorta like fresh naphtha with the volatiles still in it, and everclear combined?

That would smell sorta good, its a nice 'round' scent.

[Bluestein]

Appreciate the detailed descriptions.-

I am left wondering if anything approaching a "standard" exists for smells ...

That would be one hard thing to provide standardized descriptions for - both qualitatively and quantifiably ...

PS. I seem to recall someone somewhere had developed an "electronic nose" ...

... maybe that might be way in.-

[carlmr]

>I am left wondering if anything approaching a "standard" exists for smells ...

You can buy tasting kits for whiskey or wine. They include individual scents like peaty, smokey, oaky, blackberry even some weird ones like band-aid. You can use them to train your nose to deconstruct the smell of whiskey or wine.

It's really eye opening (or nose opening if you will). Since you might even find you suddenly agree with the tasting notes on the bottle.

[Bluestein]

Interesting. Also, if I may, it seems to me there's more individual variation in "smell discernment" ability among individuals than there is for other senses.-

ie. so called "super-noses" vs. "scent deaf" people.-

[robinsonb5]

"characteristic"? ;)

[Bluestein]

Well played.-

[_a_a_a_]

Well played indeed, but from wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrahydrofuran "Odor: Ether-like".

As a side note, ether is a lovely smell diluted but inhaled concentrated (for recreational purposes – it's a bit like alcohol in effect) it's bloody brutal, burning your nose & lungs.

(They used to be sweets in the UK called Victory V's which contained a very small amount of ether, and they were just lush. Bought some recently and found whatever additives that was had been removed, oh woe :) )

[StableAlkyne]

> older scientific literature is full of all sorts of knowledge that was obtained in ways that are shockingly unsafe by modern standards

My favorite is there are old manuals that recommend smoking while working with cyanide. Allegedly it produces a very disagreeable flavor when you inhale the cyanide through the cigarette, so you get warning to get out of the area*

This was before fume hoods were common, when you would most likely be doing this outside or next to a window

* I have not tested this, and I don't know of anyone who has, so don't rely on what could be an old telephone game for chemical safety

[krisoft]

The Stern–Gerlach experiment is famous for many things. One of them is that the only reason the silver deposits could be seen were because the experimenters smoked cheap cigars with sulfur in them, which turned the deposited silver to black.

"After venting to release the vacuum, Gerlach removed the detector flange. But he could see no trace of the silver atom beam and handed the flange to me. With Gerlach looking over my shoulder as I peered closely at the plate, we were surprised to see gradually emerge the trace of the beam…. Finally we realized what [had happened]. I was then the equivalent of an assistant professor. My salary was too low to afford good cigars, so I smoked bad cigars. These had a lot of sulfur in them, so my breath on the plate turned the silver into silver sulfide, which is jet black, so easily visible. It was like developing a photographic film."

[Bluestein]

Imagine the quantity of sulfur he must have absorbed in order for his breath to have a high enough concentration ...

[thaumasiotes]

I was just looking at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK597858/ , a review of the effects of fluorine in various forms as administered in various ways.

I was pretty surprised to see the experiments on human volunteers.

[thrw9358767]

A friend’s dad recognised cyanide during a chemistry exam by tasting it. (He survived and passed the exam.)

The task was to say what each of n substances given were in a short enough amount of time, filling out a report. I’m not sure if they still give cyanide to students during exams. That was communist Poland.

[cperciva]

He's lucky that he could smell it! About 1/3 of the population lack the gene -- including my grandfather, who discovered this when performing an industrial reaction with cyanides and being alerted by someone at the other end of the room yelling that he could smell cyanide.

[adonovan]

Hydrogen sulfide generally repels people to a safe distance due to its strong smell of rotten eggs, but in very high doses, such as when the police open a car door after an H2S suicide within, it quickly disables that very sense of smell.

[Bluestein]

> He survived and passed the exam

Talk about "for science" ...

[amy-petrik-214]

on this point, the disease "diabetes" comes from an old latin word "diabeetus" which is Spanish for "urine which tastes very sweet with a hint of cinnamon". Now.. .. one can imagine how physicians of the time would go about diagnosing this disease, "diabeetus"

[Bluestein]

("Amd this, dear children is how we got psychedelics ..."

I jest. I believe it was unwanted skin contact ...

[MadnessASAP]

If you are referring to LSD you do not jest. Albert Hoffman intentionally dosed himself, although he took what would now be considered 5-10 times a typical "dose".

Also it does not readily absorb through the skin.

Edit: https://web.archive.org/web/20080316074056/http://www.flashb...

Apparently his first experience was accidental. His second experience was intentional, although still far higher then would be considered reasonable.

[samatman]

250µg is a robust dose of LSD, but not an unreasonable one at all. Someone with some experience who takes that amount will appear to others as obviously tripping, but ordinarily they will still make sense, be able to converse, and so on.

100µg is the usual standard of measurement, as in a drop from a vial or a square of blotter, and plenty of enthusiasts like three of those when they partake. So more like 2.5X of a 'standard dose', and well within the typical range.

I'm certain it was a remarkable experience for someone who had no idea whatsoever what they were getting into, though.

[rzzzt]

There is a story floating around of a repairman who accidentally exposed themselves to the substance while repairing a 60s modular synthesizer: https://cdm.link/2019/05/a-buchla-synth-repair-turned-into-a... (some broken embeds but the text is intact)

The article does say that it might not have absorbed through skin but through a touch of the eye or mouth.

[Bluestein]

> Apparently his first experience was accidenta

Thanks. That is what I seemed to recall.-

Lucky he did not overdose ...

[MadnessASAP]

There's no known case of anyone dying from an LSD. Even after taking a few thousand times the typical amount (they thought it was cocaine). They did need hospitalization and would likely have died from aspirating their own vomit without it, however they all fully recovered within 48 hours.

It's a pretty challenging drug to hurt yourself (physically/chemically) with.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1129381/pdf/wes...