Articles tagged with "pesticide"

This is an opinion piece. That is, it is my opinion. Some of you may feel that I am wrong. If so, you are welcome to disagree. Please feel free to express your own views in the next issue of this magazine.

The Swedish chemist Berzelius coined the term "organic" for substances that could only be made by living organisms and not synthesised by humans. His German friend Wöhler synthesised urea in 1828 proving Berzelius wrong: there was no such distinction. Another brilliant German chemist, Liebig, then used "organic" to mean carbon-compound chemistry, extending this to include the chemistry of living organisms and so beginning biochemistry.

The Health Department was planning a study of pesticides and other Chemicals which New Zealanders might be consuming In food and water, said the acting departmental press officer, Mr John Boyd, yesterday.