ABSTRACT
Since the end of the 19th century, the metabolic changes effected in foreign substances have been considered to be detoxifying in nature, and for many years the liver has been credited, as the guardian of the body, with the responsibility for detoxification. It is becoming increasingly evident that metabolism of drugs and other foreign chemicals may not always be an innocuous biochemical event leading to detoxification and elimination of the compound. Liver injury induced by chemicals has been recognized as a toxicologic problem for close to 100 years, and because of its strategic situation, the liver is a first-line target for damage (adverse effects) (1).
