"To only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT…”
National Academy of Sciences, 1970
In 1874 Austrian chemist Othmar Zeicfler made one of the more famous chemicals of all time— dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane(DDT).
Zeidler was more interested in making chemicals then determining their possible uses. It was not until 1935 that another chemist, Paul Hermann Muller (1899-1965) began a hunt for insecticides while working at the J. R. Geigy Corporation in Switzerland. By 1939 Muller had independently synthesized DDT, studied it for use as,-:an insecticide, and found it was lethal for mosquitoes, potato beetles, body lice, and other pests. Muller's studies also revealed that in small doses DDT was safe for humans. In 1940, he was granted a Swiss patent and by 1942 DDT products were commercially available.
Almost immediately, the power of DDT was recognized as unparalleled in combating infectious diseases such as yellow fever, dengue fever, and malaria, all spread by mosquitoes. Use of DDT actually eradicated malaria from whole islands and proved that insecticides were a way to combat disease. By the early 1970s, however, use of DDT was universally banned due to environmental concerns.
