The book suggested that DDT and other pesticides may cause cancer and that their agricultural use was a threat to wildlife, particularly birds. The book catalogued the environmental impacts of the indiscriminate spraying of DDT in the US and questioned the logic of releasing large amounts of chemicals into the environment without fully understanding their effects on ecology or human health. In 1962, Houghton Mifflin published Silent Spring by American biologist Rachel Carson. The Swiss chemist Paul Hermann Müller of Geigy Pharmaceutical was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1948 "for his discovery of the high efficiency of DDT as a contact poison against several arthropods." After the war, DDT was made available for use as an agricultural insecticide, and soon its production and use skyrocketed. In the early years of World War II DDT was used with great effect to combat mosquitoes spreading malaria, typhus, and other insect-borne diseases among both military and civilian populations. It was first synthesized in 1874 but its insecticidal properties were not discovered until 1939. DDT is a chemical with a long, unique, and controversial history. DDTĤ,4'-(2,2,2-trichloroethane- 1,1-diyl)bis(chlorobenzene)Įxcept where noted otherwise, data are given for materials in their standard state (at 25 ☌, 100 kPa) Infobox disclaimer and referencesĭDT (from its trivial name, Dichloro- Diphenyl- Trichloroethane) is one of the best known synthetic pesticides. For other uses, see DDT (disambiguation).
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