"Fogger truck sprays Jones Beach in New York with DDT, 1945." Courtesy of BioMed Central
In 1874, Othmar Zeidler first synthesized Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, but it wasn’t until 1939 that Paul Hermann Muller discovered that DDT, as it is commonly known, worked as a powerful pesticide. During World War II, its widespread use greatly reduced infectious diseases. It was sprayed on soldiers to prevent Malaria, and on crops to protect from insects.
"[We are] proud of its amazing record of having been the main agent in eradicating malaria in countries whose populations total 550 million people, of having saved about 5 million lives and prevented 100 million illnesses in the first eight years of its use... without causing the loss of a single life by poisoning from DDT alone.”
- World Health Organization (WHO)
"January 1944. The U.S. Army uses DDT to end the typhus
epidemic in Naples." Courtesy of The New Atlantis
Following the war, DDT was marketed for home use. Farmers would dust large swaths of crops with the pesticide and some mothers would even spray it on their children’s food so they would not eat bugs.
"Color print magazine advertisement for Black Flag's Aerosol Insect Killer." Courtesy of Science History Institute
"Black and white print magazine advertisement for Trimz DDT wallpaper. This ad appeared in Women's Day, June 1947." Courtesy of Science History Institute
"Color print magazine advertisement for Pennsalt DDT products. This ad appeared in Time Magazine, June 30, 1947." Courtesy of Science History Institute
Courtesy of Communicable Disease Center
Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for the negative side effects of DDT and other pesticides to become apparent. Only a few days after spraying, birds would fall from the sky, fish would float to the surface of lakes, and even humans showed some health deterioration.
When it rained, pesticides mixed into the runoff, contaminating rivers, streams, and other water sources. The contaminated water was consumed by animals causing them to die. Meanwhile, every time DDT was sprayed, most of the insects would die but a handful would survive. These survivors gained resistance to DDT and passed it down to their offspring, forcing researchers to develop new variants. But, when new ones were used, the same effect would occur, creating a vicious cycle.
“Life is a miracle beyond our comprehension, and we should reverence it even where we have to struggle against it...The resort to weapons such as insecticides to control it is proof of insufficient knowledge and of incapacity so to guide the processes of nature that brute force becomes unnecessary. Humbleness is in order; there is no excuse for scientific conceit here.” - Rachel Carson