"Now It Can Be Told"
(Geigy Company Press Release), 1944
The True Story of DDT, Which Alleviated The Typhus Epidemic in Italy; Amazing Preventive Possibilities in Other Fields; Tremendous Benefits to Agriculture; scientists Do 8 Years' Research in 2; End of Possibilities Not in Sight.
A chemical formula which lay dormant for almost seventy years in a dusty volume of "Berichte der Chemischen Gesellschaft" (the Reports of the German Chemical Society) has suddenly come to life as the progenitor of a spectacular series of insecticidal compositions that seem destined to achieve in preventive medicine an effectiveness already likened to that of penicillin and sulfa drugs in the curative field.
Apart from their sensational preventive properties, dramatically demonstrated in the Army's virtual conquest of typhus, the compositions, in results already attained and in hopes induced by current tests, encourage the belief that they will bring about an economic revolution in the field of agriculture by crops saved from the scourge of insect pests.
When the Geigy patent application was filed in Washington, the military authorities, having come upon a potential major weapon, clamped down a firm secrecy order which had prevented, until last summer, the revelation of any phase of the amazing developments involved. Now, Geigy Company Inc., New York, is able to disclose some of the major aspects of a remarkable discovery. . . .
. . . In 1939 the potato crop of Switzerland was seriously threatened by the imported (from America) Colorado Potato Beetle. Geigy made available to the Swiss entomologist, Dr. R. Wiesmann, a composition carrying the designation "Experiment #G1750" which was later called "Gesarol." Dr. Wiesmann conducted experiments in the Swiss Federal Experimental Agricultural Station at Waederswil and confirmed Geigy's results which culminated in the control of the destructive Potato Beetle. Shortages of the accepted insecticides, arsenates, pyrethrum and rotenone further encouraged the investigations which have revealed DDT compositions as the outstanding development in the insecticide field for many years. . . .
When the United States entered the War it became manifest that its uniformed men would be sent to all parts of the world, meeting the menace of typhus and other dread diseases in many infected areas. Geigy in Basle, aware it had the most effective enemy of typhus ever experienced in medical history, informed Major De Jonge, American Military Attache in Berne, in August, 1942, that Neocid, the lousicidal composition of DDT, had proved amazingly effective against the typhus carrying louse, and that it possessed incredible residual potency, an all important factor.
From the materials submitted by Geigy to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, much excitement was created. . . . Thereafter, scores upon scores of the Bureau's experts undertook experiments in experimental stations allover the United States. . . .
ENTOMOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION CONTINUES AT A MADDENING PACE AND IT IS SAFE TO SAY THAT SCIENTIFIC DATA WHICH UNDER NORMAL CONDITIONS WOULD TAKE ALL OF EIGHT YEARS OF EFFORT TO COMPILE WILL BE AVAILABLE IN TWO YEARS. FEW WILL EVER KNOW WHAT SACRIFICES SCIENTISTS THROUGHOUT THIS COUNTRY HAVE MADE OF THEIR TIME AND EFFORT TO HAVE DDT COMPOSITIONS READY FOR THE ARMED FORCES AND THE PUBLIC. . . .
Geigy, in cooperation with the Cincinnati Chemical Works, was largely responsible for the louse powder which conquered the recent typhus epidemic in Naples and Cincinnati Chemical Works has been by far the largest producer of DDT up to this moment. . . .
Other compositions of DDT in emulsion form have been used to impregnate clothing. . . .
Walls and ceilings covered with a Gesarol spray remain deadly to flies for three months. Dairy cattle made nervous by flies have been quieted by sprayings of the compound, an important item when it is realized that a cow's milk productivity is lowered by a pestilence of flies—apart from sanitary considerations. Beef cattle similarly are benefitted. . . .
Tests on dogs and cats have shown that Neocid not only eradicates fleas but also affords subsequent protection for a long time. In ordinary domestic use, the composition has been most efficacious against moths, roaches, bedbugs, silverfish. Beds properly sprayed just once with a DDT composition continue to be 100% effective even after 300 days against the bed-bug, the bane of some hospitals and institutions.
House owners may also be comforted by assurance of its deadliness to termites. . . .
. . . DDT compositions, Gesarol Sprays and Dusts, are successful against such garden pests as the Japanese Beetle, thrips, tomato fruit worm, plant lice and the three important cabbage worms. . . .
. . . Geigy believes that it has the support of the United States Department of Agriculture in predicting that the general commercial production of Gesarol, when the military needs have been accommodated, will open the way to what may be regarded as a revolution in the economy of agriculture and in the quantity of the world's food output. . . .
The toxicity of Gesarol and Neocid preparations to man and animals is still under investigation by the U.S. Public Health Service, the Food and Drug Administration and the Kettering Laboratory of Applied Physiology of the University of Cincinnati, the last mentioned research being sponsored by Geigy. Research goes on. Indeed, considerable research is still necessary to determine all the possible uses and ineptitudes of DDT compositions. The forms and methods of application, the rates of application and the dosages on specific plants and in specific climates must be settled. Research is proceeding as rapidly as good practice permits.
Enough has been revealed to indicate the possibility of wide application in agriculture, households and in preventive measures against disease-carrying insects to establish the DDT compositions as among the great scientific discoveries of our time.
MANY AUTHORITIES HAVE DECLARED THAT OUT OF THIS WAR HAVE COME THREE MOMENTOUS DISCOVERIES IN CURATIVE AND PREVENTlVE MEDICINE—PLASMA—PENICILLIN—and—DDT.