The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives - Sciencemadness Dot Org

CHAPTER IV
AROMATIC NITRO COMPOUNDS
Aromatic nitro compounds are generally stable but are frequently
reactive, especially if they contain groups other than
nitro groups in the meta position with respect to one another.
As a class they constitute the most important of the military
high explosives. They are also used as components of smokeless
powder, in compound detonators, and in primer compositions.
Liquid nitro compounds, and the mixtures which are produced as
by-products from the manufacture of pure nitro compounds for
military purposes, are used in non-freezing dynamite and other
commercial explosives. The polynitro compounds are solvents for
nitrocellulose.
The nitro compounds are poisonous. Nitrobenzene, known also
as "oil of mirbane," is absorbed through the skin and by breathing
its vapors, and has been reported to cause death by the careless
wearing of clothing upon which it had been spilled. The less
volatile polynitro compounds, like trinitrotoluene, are absorbed
through the skin when handled, and may cause injury by the
inhalation of their dust or of their vapors when they are melted.
Minor TNT sickness may manifest itself by cyanosis, dermatitis,
nose bleeding, constipation, and giddiness; the severer form, by
toxic jaundice and aplastic anemia. 1 One of the nitro groups is
reduced in the body, and dinitrohydroxylaminotoluene may be
detected in the urine. Trinitrobenzene is more poisonous than
trinitrotoluene, which, in turn, is more poisonous than trinitroxylene,
alkyl groups in this series having the same effect as in the
1 J. W. Schereschewsky, "Trinitrotoluol, Practical Points in Its Safe
Handling," U. S. Pub. Health Service, Reprint 434 from Pub. Health Repts.,
Nov. 16, 1917, pp. 1919-1926. C. Voegtlin, C. W. Hooper, and J. M. Johnson,
"Trinitrotoluene Poisoning—Its Nature, Diagnosis and Prevention,"
U. S. Pub. Health Service, Hyg. Lab. Bull. 126, 1920. A. Hamilton, "Trinitrotoluene
as an Industrial Poison," J. Ind. Hyg., 3, 102-119 (1921V A. L.
Leigh Silver, "Treatment and Prevention of Industrial Diseases in Filling
Factories," J. Roy. Army Med. Corps, July, 1938, pp. 87-96.
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