142 DDT— Killer of Killers 



stung by a bee a year from now will, undoubtedly, be every 

 bit as good as they are today. 



Tougher Bugs 



In the age-old battle between men and insects, man has 

 devoted his efforts to new and better ways to kill, and the 

 insects have retaliated not only by an all-out breeding pro- 

 gram, but also by breeding tougher individuals. This goes 

 back to Darwin's idea of the survival of the fittest. When 

 we use an insecticide, the more susceptible individuals are 

 killed off, but some of the real tough babies survive, and 

 their offspring, according to the universal law of heredity, 

 are tough like their parents. 



This is very disturbing. And it is probably even more 

 disturbing in the field of medicine than it is in the field of in- 

 secticides. Penicillin, a few years ago, was the "wonder 

 drug" — cases of gonorrhea, certain types of pneumonia, and 

 many other diseases were cleared up in a short time when 

 penicillin was brought into the battle. But before long 

 something began to happen: many diseases were no longer 

 responding to penicillin treatment the way they formerly did. 

 What was happening? Seemingly, the good old law of the 

 survival of the fittest. Penicillin killed a lot of germs, but 

 a small percentage of germs were not killed, and from these 

 penicillin-resistant individuals, new and tougher strains were 

 developing. 



Pencillin is not the only drug with which this phenome- 

 non has been noticed. The sulfa drugs, remarkably effec- 

 tive at first, began to lose their effectiveness as sulfa-resisting 

 strains developed from the germs that survived sulfa treat- 

 ment. This, undoubtedly, has happened with all of man's 



