Word: ddt
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...Army brought out a new drug, a large white pill which seems to be both a preventive and cure for malaria, and has to be taken only once a week. Halazone tablets [to purify water], which were used in the last war, offer protection against one source of dysentery. DDT is effective against the flies, but so far it has been in critical supply in Korea, and most soldiers have scratched themselves into infections from the maddening bites...
There might have been more rejoicing if the experts had not remembered the sad case of DDT, whose use has developed in many places new breeds of resistant insects. Forewarned by this disturbing experience, they gathered seed from some of the hardy Johnson grass survivors and tried the effect of 2,4-D on the second generation. It was just as they feared. Twice as many grass seedlings poked through the soil and twice as many grew to full, pestiferous maturity...
...weapon McAuliffe was talking about was "nerve gas," long a subject of wild speculation among amateur military strategists. Presumably it would be sprayed over enemy cities by planes in the same way that whole areas are sprayed with mosquito-killing DDT, paralyzing the whole population. Then the attacking army, equipped with protective masks, would march in and take over...
Like many other things, DDT is poisonous to human beings if swallowed in large doses. Perry and Bodenlos suspect, however, that some of the deaths credited to DDT were really due to the kerosene and other solvents in which the insecticide was dissolved...
...officers examined military personnel and laborers who had been working with DDT for as much as five years. In no case did they find an ailment traceable to DDT. To make doubly sure, they analyzed body fat from 16 men who had been exposed constantly to DDT. Though the insecticide tends to concentrate in fatty tissues, they found none of it in their samples...