Insect Control Investigations of the Orlando, Fla., 
Laboratory During World War II 
By E. F. Knipuine, Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, Agricultural Research 
Administration, U. S. Department of Agriculture 
[With 6 Plates] 
Early in 1942 the Bureau of Ento- 
mology and Plant Quarantine in the 
United States Department of Agricul- 
ture reviewed its research projects for 
the purpose of realigning them in 
closer correlation with the exigencies 
of war. Inasmuch as funds are usu- 
ally appropriated for specific purposes, 
it is difficult to make sudden shifts 
from one project to another. This 
difficulty was considerably alleviated, 
however, by funds provided by the 
Office of Scientific Research and De- 
velopment of the National Emergency 
Council. This transfer of funds was 
prompted by requests for research on 
medical entomology by the Surgeon 
General’s Office of the United States 
Army. 
This paper is designed to review 
briefly the conspicuous accomplish- 
ments of the men and women who par- 
ticipated in the research conducted at 
the Orlando laboratory during the 
period from March 1942 to October 
1945. During this period much in- 
formation on the control of insects, 
especially those carrying disease, was 
developed and was applied under 
emergency conditions by our military 
forces. The practical use of this infor- 
mation was a notable contribution to 
the successful termination of the war. 
The first recommendations on the use 
of DDT and other insecticides for 
controlling body lice, vectors of typhus, 
mosquitoes, vectors of malaria, dengue 
filariasis, and encephalitis, and yellow 
fever were made by the Orlando 
personnel. The number of persons 
involved, including the technical per- 
sonnel, clerical staff, and human 
guinea pigs, averaged less than the 
number of one company of infantry; 
yet, the recommendations made by 
these workers, no doubt, saved thous- 
sands of lives and prevented the loss 
of hundreds of thousands of man-days 
which otherwise would have been 
caused by insect-borne diseases. 
The total funds expended amounted 
to less than the cost of one of the small- 
est cargo vessels, yet the findings of 
this group of researchers now form the 
basis for our present methods of con- 
trolling some of the most devastating 
and debilitating diseases of mankind. 
For centuries man has been in con- 
tinuous conflict with dangerous and 
treacherous insects. Insects and their 
allies (ticks and mites will be called 
insects in this paper) directly and in- 
directly have taken a tremendous toll 
of human lives, but until the advent of 
DDT we had no very effective method 
for stopping an onrushing epidemic of 
typhus. Neither had we an effective 
method for killing adult and larval mos- 
quitoes with one application of an in- 
secticide. Today, however, a wide- 
spread epidemic of malaria can be stop- 
ped within a matter of hours by the 
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