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Studies of the composition of coal tar, which began in Prussia in 1834, profoundly affected the economies of Germany, Great Britain, India, and the rest of the world, as well as medicine and surgery. Such effects include the collapse of the profits of the British indigo monopoly, the growth in economic power of Germany based on coal tar chemistry, and an economic crisis in India that led to more humane tax laws and, ultimately, the independence of India and the end of the British Empire. Additional consequences were the development of antiseptic surgery and the synthesis of a wide variety of useful drugs that have eradicated infections and alleviated pain. Many of these drugs, particularly the commonly used analgesics, sulfonamides, sulfones, and local anesthetics, are derivatives of aniline, originally called "blue oil" or "kyanol." Some of these aniline derivatives, however, have also caused aplastic anemia, agranulocytosis, and methemoglobinemia (that is, "blue people"). Exposure to aniline drugs, particularly when two or three aniline drugs are taken concurrently, seems to be the commonest cause of methemoglobinemia today.

The aniline dye industry was created in 1856 when the Englishman William Perkin prepared the color mauve from aniline. Dye industries were then formed in several European countries, and each year thousands of new colors and shades were tested on fabrics. Scientists of that period used these new dyes to study the structures of plant and animal tissues. Starting in 1880 George Grubler, a German pharmacist, sold biological stains to scientists around the world. Grubler stains earned a reputation for reliability, and many of the staining methods, developed at that time stiuplated the use of Grubler's dyes, even after the firm was sold to Karl Hollborn who continued Grubler's work and devised new staining methods. The Grubler company continued to prosper until World War I. The Chroma Gesellschaft-Schmid GMBH Company in Germany is a successor of the Grubler company. The interrupted supply of Grubler stains during World War I prompted the start of the American biological stain industry and subsequently the Biological Stain Commission was formed.