Ecotoxicology is a relatively new scientific discipline. Indeed, it
might be argued that it is only during the last 5-10 years that it has
come to merit being regarded as a true science, rather than a collection
of procedures for protecting the environment through management and
monitoring of pollutant discharges into the environment. The term
'ecotoxicology' was first coined in the late sixties by Prof. Truhaut, a
toxicologist who had the vision to recognize the importance of
investigating the fate and effects of chemicals in ecosystems. At that
time, ecotoxicology was considered a sub-discipline of medical
toxicology. Subsequently, several attempts have been made to portray
ecotoxicology in a more realistic light. Notably, both F. Moriarty
(1988) and F. Ramade (1987) emphasized in their books the broad basis of
ecotoxicology, encompassing chemical and radiation effects on all
components of ecosystems. In doing so, they and others have shifted
concern from direct chemical toxicity to man, to the far more subtle
effects that pollutant chemicals exert on natural biota. Such effects
potentially threaten the existence of all life on Earth. Although I have
identified the sixties as the era when ecotoxicology was first conceived
as a coherent subject area, it is important to acknowledge that studies
that would now be regarded as ecotoxicological are much older. Wherever
people's ingenuity has led them to change the face of nature
significantly, it has not escaped them that a number of biological con-
sequences, often unfavourable, ensue.
