1832: Carl Reichenbach isolated the smoky distillate of wood tar and named it creosote, from kreas (flesh) and sozo (preserve), because it kept meat from rotting. The antiseptic property that flavored smoked food later preserved sleepers and telegraph poles; the medical descendant, guaiacol, treated consumption.
The sensory memory: creosote is the smell of summer railways and old piers, a preservative so successful it became an environmental contaminant, listed, restricted, and nostalgia-scented simultaneously. The flesh-saver turned into a regulated pollutant.
The root's full arc in one chemical: sozein began with keeping bodies alive, peaked at saving souls, and bottomed out in a fence treatment now flagged for carcinogenicity. Preservation and poisoning are dose-separated twins, and the word family never claimed otherwise.
How did the savior root end up in the hardware store?