DDT Is Born 39 



with which it had taken on so many other seemingly insur- 

 mountable problems during the war. In 1943, DDT was 

 in commercial produaion at the Cincinnati Chemical Works, 

 a subsidiary of Geigy Company, Inc., and early in 1944, Du 

 Pont, Merck, and Hercules Powder Co. also went into pro- 

 duction. In fact, within a short time, 15 American chemical 

 companies were producing DDT for our armed forces; and 

 another problem had been licked through American ingenu- 

 ity. 



Although there are a large number of manufacturers of 

 DDT, the use of this substance in inseaicidal preparations is 

 covered by patents issued to Geigy in various countries, in- 

 cluding Switzerland, England, Canada, and the United States. 

 To make this magic insecticide available to everyone, Geigy 

 has followed a very liberal licensing policy. Manufacturers 

 of insecticide compositions containing DDT are licensed un- 

 der the Geigy patents and pay a nominal fee for this right — 

 a fee that is remarkably low when one considers the tremen- 

 dous cost of the many years of development work by this 

 company. 



What Is DDT? 



To the average individual, DDT is a material that is 

 used to squirt the obnoxious fly and mosquito so as to shorten 

 the days of their lives; or it is a powdery material dusted down 

 the pants of a dirty individual in order to kill lice. Actually, 

 to call either of these materials DDT is not strictly correct, 

 for pure DDT is never used as such but is always compounded 

 with other ingredients to form the various sprays or powders 

 that are now being sold throughout the country. You won't 

 find pure DDT in the corner store. If you want to see it, you 



