DDT is the best-known of several chlorine-containing pesticides used in the 1940s and 1950s. With pyrethrum in short supply, DDT was used extensively during World War II by the Allies to control the insect vectors of typhus – nearly eliminating the disease in many parts of Europe.
The insecticide DDT is mostly thought of today as a bird-killing eco-nightmare. But it wasn't always so. DDT was once a Nobel Prize-worthy miracle of modern chemistry.
And for the decades of the 40s and 50s, ordinary people used DDT—lots of it—in ways that seem extraordinary today, they sprayed DDT liberally on their clothes and doused their dogs and chickens with it, DDT-impregnated wallpaper decorated with Disney characters was advertised to protect children from disease.
DDT was banned in the US in 1972 because of environmental and health concerns. The compound is highly toxic to fish and invertebrates, and interferes with reproduction in birds by making eggshells fragile; its effects in mammals, especially humans, aren't as clear.
https://www.wired.com/2014/06/vintage-pesticide-ddt/
"Quick Henry, the Flit!" Readers of a certain age will remember that advertising phrase.
ReplyDeletereaders of my blog probably know it, because that was a Dr Suess advertisement
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