Here is another molecule that's gone out of favor in recent decades: carbon tetrachloride:
Chlorinated solvents are great solvents. Something about the polarizability, medium polarity, (relative) lack of reactivity, just makes them the only thing that will work in a lot of applications. The three simplest chlorinated solvents are dichloromethane, chloroform, and carbon tetrachloride. Those are CH2Cl2, CHCl3, and CCl4. Those are in order of increasing degree of halogenation, and, coincidentally, increasing degree of toxicity. Methylene chloride/dichloromethane is regarded as a necessary evil - I doubt we will never be rid of chlorinated solvents. Chloroform is fine too, but not the first thing you jump to. Carbon tetrachloride has gotten the reputation as being something you'd better have a good reason for picking.
This wasn't always the case. "Carbon tet," as the grizzled veterans call it, was ubiquitous. In addition to use in synthesis, it enjoyed wide use as a dry cleaning solvent, a refrigerant, and one of the early Halon-type fire suppressants (if you have a fire extinguisher from pre-WWII, there's a good chance you have a gallon of carbon tet sloshing around in there).
Over time, though, it got a reputation as something that could cause liver and kidney damage, as well as cancer. I've heard stories (maybe apocryphal) that CCl4 isn't that bad, actually, but its effect is potentiated manyfold by alcohol ingestion. In any case, it's one of those things you don't see much of anymore. Contrary to popular myth, it isn't "banned" (at least in small quantities for research use) - you can still buy it from the chemical companies.
Carbon tetrachloride can be a touchy subject. Some chemists will freak out at the mention of its use, and some will go on entertaining rants about the good old days of dumping-benzene-down-the-drain gonzo chemistry.
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I love carbon tet.
Before I went back to school for the PhD, I was an analytical chemist for a vegetable oil plant. Certain titrations we did worked so much better in carbon tet than chloroform, but we were never allowed to use it (officially).
In grad school, and now in industry, I use it only sparingly because it is a little pricey. But I can't muster much fear for it, when I use HMPA and DMSO with cyanide in it, when I need to. You got to keep your head about you. Chemistry is dangerous. Fun, but dangerous.
Carbon Tet is also strictly regulated under the Montreal Protocol on account of its ozone-depleting properties. Its ozone depletion potential is 1.1, slightly larger than that of CFC-11 (1.0 by definition).
Thankfully, many of the nasties we use appear to have gotten a by for small research uses. Dibromomethane (which is usually used stoichiometrically, not as a solvent, in my experience), carbon tet, and others.
A lot of what's used today is "greener" (but, I'll wager, not much safer to the end user) - 1,2-dichloroethane is encountered pretty regularly in organic labs. DCE is one of my favorite solvents; Dylan Stiles remarks on using it as a drop-in replacement for CCl4 for radical halogenations, one of the reactions some people still break out the carbon tet for. It appears to be effectively 0 ODP.
To be honest, we used liters of carbon tet in undergrad chemistry classes. Sure, we might store it in the fume hood, but that doesn't mean that there weren't literally 4 or 5 liters per lab every day. Does DMSO really sound that much better? It's faily routinely used as a topical application to the skin.