摘要：Paraquat (1, 1'-dimethyl-4, 4'-dipyridylium salt) is a widely used non-selective herbicide in the world. The herbicide is highly lethal to human, and its toxicity is characterized by damage to the lung. Many peoples have died through accidental, or suicidal and homicidal ingestion of paraquat in every year, and the numbers of the dead have recently increased year by year, in Japan. Much attention is being denoted to such an increment of the dead, as a social problem. In this review, paraquat poisoning and its identification (containing its related compound, diquat) are dealt with in two sections. In the first section, toxicity and metabolism of the herbicide, a possible mechanism and therapeutics of the poisoning are discussed. The second section deals with the methods used to detect and analyse the herbecides (paraquat and diquat) in human body fluids and post mortem tissue resulting from intentional or accidental ingestion. Furthermore, analyses of trace amounts of the herbicides in animal tissue, plant material, soil and river are covered. The methods are as follows : spectrophotometry, paper partition-and thin layer-chromatography, high performance liquid chromatography, gas liquid chromatography, biological assay (immunoassay etc.) and micellaneous. The methods would be applicable to the identification of the samples in the fields of forensic chemistry, clinical and environmental toxicologys.
