Not Tcx) Hot To Handle 45 



loose and could some of the liquid have leaked out onto the 

 tobacco? This was, at least, a possibility. Did he have 

 DDT poisoning? Better check up! Sure enough, his urine 

 showed DDT! 



The farm hand soon felt better and was able to get 

 back to work, although his throat felt sore for about three 

 days. Whether or not he learned his lesson and took better 

 care of his plug of^tobacco in the future is not part jof the 

 record. 



This enlightening experiment in the spring of 1946, 

 although entirely unintentional, was certainly very valuable 

 for it was the first authentic report of the toxicity of DDT on 

 man. It was recorded for posterity in the Journal of the 

 American Medical Association by Dr. M. I. Smith, of the 

 National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Md. 



From a purely scientific point of view, this experiment 

 left much to be desired: there was no record of the amount 

 of DDT that this lover of tobacco had consumed. Never- 

 theless, it must have been many times the amount that anyone 

 would be likely to get accidentally under even the most care- 

 less conditions of use. Actually, among all the hundreds of 

 workers engaged in making DDT, in formulating sprays and 

 powders, and in testing the products over periods of months, 

 no case of DDT poisoning has yet been reported. But, let's 

 look into this matter of toxicity a little more thoroughly. 



Don't Be Afraid! 



Something that will kill bugs may also kill animals, 

 even man. This sounds logical enough, but it isn't necessar- 

 ily true. However, it's hard to convince some folks of that. 

 And when DDT first hit the civilian market, many people 



