Factors in responses to the environment: introduction.

The explosion of knowledge in the fields of biology and chemistry has not gone unnoticed by the toxicologist. pharmacologist, physiologist, or ph sician. Indeed, basic findings in biology and biochemistry have found extrapolation to man, and this scmposium is concerned with how man is served through an understanding of basic factors of living organisms in general. Two basic factors must be considered in relating how information derived from species other than man can be used in order to explain what goes on in man. These are simple, but they form an important part in the overall scheme of what is or is not useful to explain how man will respond to an insult emerging from the environment. These factors are: 1) species differences in response to environment, and 2) nutritional components and biochemical pathways directing responses in various species to environmental agents. One example may serve to illustrate both points. Toxicologists have known for ver long time that the s i m lec of alcT ols, meth l alcohol, is quite t x' to man. We have also known for a very long time that this alcohol is almost completely innocuous in the rat, in rabbits, and in guinea pigs (7) (Table 1). Recently, we have shown that, under certain conditions, it is possible to reproduce many of the findings reported in man in the monkey (5). At first glance some might be tempted to ask what relevance this has to us since methanol poisoning represents only a minor percentage of the poisonings reported in the United States. However, most everyone knows now that methanol is being proposed, and is in use already in certain areas, as a fuel and source of energy. Therefore, what seemed to be a problem of mere minor or academic interest turns out to be one of great potential importance.