It is produced in the manner first reported by Scheele in 1786: heating gallic acid to induce decarboxylation.

This conversion can be used to determine the amount of oxygen in a gas sample, notably by the use of the Orsat apparatus.

In those days it had a reputation for erratic and unreliable behavior, due possibly to its propensity for oxidation.

It experienced a revival starting in the 1980s due largely to the efforts of experimenters Gordon Hutchings and John Wimberley.

Hutchings spent over a decade working on pyrogallol formulas, eventually producing one he named PMK for its main ingredients: pyrogallol, Metol, and Kodalk (the trade name of Kodak for sodium metaborate).

This formulation resolved the consistency issues, and Hutchings found that an interaction between the greenish stain given to film by pyro developers and the color sensitivity of modern variable-contrast photographic papers gave the effect of an extreme compensating developer.

[3] Pure pyrogallol was found to be extremely genotoxic when inserted into cultured cells, but α amylase proteins protect against its toxicity during everyday exposure.