I did an internship at a chemical laboratory once.
The older folks told me that they aren't allowed to use the awesome stuff anymore.
Back in the days, they would use Benzene for everything, the only stuff that would get the lab floors clean at the end of the day.
Same with asbestos, leaded fuel, and whatnot. Compounds that are perfect for their use cases, yet highly toxic.
One of my elderly colleagues once told me that at the end of each day, they'd put all the lab coats in a big vat of benzene to clean them. The next day, they took them out, let them dry for a short while and then just put them on again. I think it was in the early 80s? He did develop cancer later.
This was the traditional solvent for cleaning up and removing excess ink in print shops all over the place.
Often still known by its archaic name Benzol when I was growing up. In high school, walking by the student print shop you could smell it way down the hall at all times. The chem labs were not nearly as bad because they had better ventilation to begin with.
Plus before my time benzene had also been prized as high-octane motor fuel for early cars back when it was obtained for sale naturally by removal from aromatic crude oils in some refineries. This was not such pure benzene however the significant percentage of impurities at the dispenser acted with an "antifreeze" effect and it handled no differently than regular gasoline below 32 degrees F.
Pure benzene freezes at about 40 degrees F, and that pure of a hydrocarbon ended up being too expensive to burn anyway.
IIRC it can really make a lawn mower cut taller grass than premium gasoline, and scientifically it does have about 100 antiknock rating so it's no surprise.
"Often still known by its archaic name Benzol"
In German, that's the regular name, haha.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/benzin has also become the word for gasoline in many languages.
That would actually imply that an OH group replaced one of the hydrogens, forming an alcohol.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_(chemistry)
So Benzol is not benzyl alcohol.
Edit: this is not what I was expecting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzyl_alcohol
That would make it phenol.
benzyl and phenyl are different
Toluene or xylene are very similar non-polar solvents, but don't have the same level of carcinogenicity as benzene. You still don't want to be inhaling them regularly or in large quantities.
The sad chemical being phased out is tetrachloroethylene (a.k.a. brake cleaner), which is nicer than its replacement (acetone), because it's non-flammable. It's also a better solvent for oil/grease than acetone.