Word: ddt
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...World War II a Geigy chemist, Paul Muller, rediscovered the formula and found that it killed bugs. Its first test came during a plague of potato beetles in Switzerland in 1939. DDT stopped the beetles dead. Concentrated DDT is toxic to men and animals when swallowed, but in the weak dilutions used for sprays and dusts, it has been found harmless to the skin...
...Department of Agriculture had begun to experiment with DDT, got such sensational results that the Surgeon General's office and Dr. Vannevar Bush's OSRD launched a full-scale investigation, soon uncovered DDT's immense military possibilities...
...crucial problem was finding a feasible process for producing DDT in the large quantities needed. It was solved last year by a Swiss-born chemist, Dr. Oskar Frey, of the Cincinnati Chemical Works. Cincinnati Chemical still produces 60% of the DDT supply...
...DDT owes its deadliness partly to an almost unique property: on insects it acts as both a contact and stomach poison. It first paralyzes an insect's hind legs, then gives it a violent attack of the jitters, finally brings on complete paralysis and death. Oddly, the pure chemical has little effect; it is good only in an oil solution or when mixed with inert powder. The usual dose is 1% to 5% DDT, dissolved in kerosene or mixed with a dust filler...
...DDT is not a kill-all. Against two of the most common U.S. crop destroyers, the Mexican bean beetle and the cotton boll weevil, DDT has proved disappointing. Man has not yet won his war with the insects...