Aniline Germany. Today, the name of BASF, originally "Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik" (English: Baden Aniline and Soda Factory), now the largest chemical supplier, echoes the legacy of the synthetic dye industry, built via aniline dyes and extended via the related azo dyes. The first azo dye was aniline yellow. In the late 19th century, aniline emerged as an analgesic drug, its cardiac-suppressive side effects countered with caffeine. During the first decade of the 20th century, while trying to modify synthetic dyes to treat African sleeping sickness, Paul Ehrlich – who had coined the term "chemotherapy" for his "magic bullet" approach to
Aniline Yellow is also used in insecticides, lacquers, varnishes, waxes, oil stains, and styrene resins. It is also an intermediate in synthesis of other dyes, e.g. chrysoidine, indulines, Solid Yellow, and Acid Yellow. Aniline Yellow was involved in the 1981 Spanish Toxic Oil Syndrome (TOS). A Madrid-based company imported denaturated rapeseed oil, dyed by aniline yellow to mark it as unsuitable for human consumption, to be used as a fuel in steel mills. However, the company distilled the oil to remove the dye, and sold it as a much more valuable olive oil for cooking. The result was a rash of pneumonia-type