32 DDT— Killer of Killers 



delve back through the years and find that long, long ago the 

 self -same formula had been worked out by some other ob- 

 scure chemistry student while working on his thesis. 



The Lost is Found 



Contrary to common opinion, great scientific discoveries 

 are seldom the result of accident. Instead, they result from 

 carefully planned programs of research in which a large num- 

 ber of scientists usually collaborate. DDT was no excep- 

 tion. Although Zeidler had prepared DDT many years ago, 

 he was not looking for an insecticide and was in no position 

 to recognize one when it suddenly appeared in his test tube. 

 It remained for a large chemical company and teams of 

 trained research scientists to give to the world this remark- 

 able discovery. 



In about the year 1934, in the scientific laboratories of 

 JLR. Geigy, A. G., of Basle, Switzerland, a team of workers 

 began a series of investigations aimed toward the develop- 

 ment of more potent insecticides. They tested the effeaive- 

 ness of a large number of available insecticides; they selected 

 those that showed the greatest promise; and then they syn- 

 thesized a large number of new materials in order to deter- 

 mine the effect of different arrangements of the atoms. 

 Among these investigators was Dr. Paul Mliller, and one of 

 the products he synthesized proved to be of startling effec- 

 tiveness. Unknown to Miiller, this compound was identical 

 with the white, crystalline substance prepared years before 

 by Zeidler. Laboratory tests of this new insecticide against 

 flies and the larvae of clothes moths showed that it had great 

 potentialities, but many materials which survive laboratory 



