DDT insecticide
DDT como insecticida
- Date
- 1939 · confidence high
- Place
- Basel, Switzerland
- Credited to
- Paul Hermann Müller (J. R. Geigy, 1939; Nobel 1948); synthesised by Othmar Zeidler (1874)
- People
- 👤 Paul Hermann Müller1899–1965
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
Persistent, cheap, contact organochlorine insecticide. It halted typhus in Naples (1943) and malaria over wide areas before its ecological harm was revealed.
What it led to
- Worldwide campaigns against malaria (WHO)
- Intensive pesticide-based agriculture
- The environmental movement (Silent Spring, 1962) and its ban (1972)
Built on
- Organochlorine chemistry
- Basel dye industry
Made possible
- Synthetic insecticides
- Environmental regulation of pesticides