DDT in the context of "Typhus"

Silent Spring is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson. Published on September 27, 1962, the book documented the environmental harm caused by the indiscriminate use of DDT, a pesticide used by soldiers during World War II. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and public officials of accepting the industry's marketing claims unquestioningly.

In the late 1950s, Carson began to work on environmental conservation, especially environmental problems that she believed were caused by synthetic pesticides. The result of her research was Silent Spring, which brought environmental concerns to the American public. The book was met with fierce opposition by chemical companies, but it swayed public opinion and led to a reversal in US pesticide policy, a nationwide ban on DDT for agricultural uses, and an environmental movement that led to the creation of the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE) is a chemical compound formed by the loss of hydrogen chloride (dehydrohalogenation) from DDT, of which it is one of the more common breakdown products. Due to DDT's massive prevalence in society and agriculture during the mid 20th century, DDT and DDE are still widely seen in animal tissue samples. DDE is particularly dangerous because it is fat-soluble like other organochlorines; thus, it is rarely excreted from the body, and concentrations tend to increase throughout life. The major exception is the excretion of DDE in breast milk, which transfers a substantial portion of the mother's DDE burden to the young animal or child. Along with accumulation over an organism's lifetime, this stability leads to bioaccumulation in the environment, which amplifies DDE's negative effects.

Flit (stylized in all caps) was the brand name for an insecticide. The original product, invented by chemist Dr. Franklin C. Nelson and launched in 1923 and mainly intended for killing flies and mosquitoes, was mineral oil based and manufactured by the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, before the company, now part of ExxonMobil, was renamed first Esso and later Exxon. The Esso formulation contained 5% DDT in the late 1940s and early 1950s, before the negative environmental impact of DDT was widely understood. Later marketed as "Flit MLO", it has since been discontinued. A hand-operated atomizer called a Flit gun was commonly used to perform the spraying.

The Flit brand name has been reused for another insecticide product, with the primary active ingredient of permethrin, marketed by Clarke Mosquito Control. The current product is most often used to control adult mosquitoes. Spraying it into the air kills adult mosquitoes that are present and then by settling onto surfaces it kills mosquitoes that may later land.

Organochlorine chemistry is concerned with the properties of organochlorine compounds, or organochlorides, organic compounds that contain one or more carbon–chlorine bonds. The chloroalkane class (alkanes with one or more hydrogens substituted by chlorine) includes common examples. The wide structural variety and divergent chemical properties of organochlorides lead to a broad range of names, applications, and properties. Organochlorine compounds have wide use in many applications, though some are of profound environmental concern, with DDT and TCDD being among the most notorious.

Organochlorides such as trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene, dichloromethane and chloroform are commonly used as solvents and are referred to as "chlorinated solvents".

Othmar Zeidler (29 August 1850 – 17 June 1911) was an Austrian chemist credited with the first synthesis of DDT.

He was born on 29 August 1850 in Vienna a son of the Viennese pharmacist Franz Zeidler. Othmar's brother, Franz Zeidler Jr. (1851–1901), also became a chemist and would collaborate with him on several projects. As a doctoral student with Adolf von Baeyer at the University of Strasbourg, then in Germany, Zeidler is credited with the first synthesis of the insecticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, or DDT in 1874. Othmar returned to Austria before 1876 and, after working at the I. chemischen Universitätslaboratorium at the University of Vienna, became a pharmacist in the Fünfhaus district of the capital. He died in Mauer near Vienna on 17 June 1911.

Paul Hermann Müller, also known as Pauly Mueller (12 January 1899 – 13 October 1965), was a Swiss chemist who received the 1948 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine for his 1939 discovery of insecticidal qualities and use of DDT in the control of vector diseases such as malaria and yellow fever.

The Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge is a 9,125-acre (37 km) National Wildlife Refuge made up of several parcels of land along 50 miles (80 km) of Maine's southern coast. Created in 1966, it is named for environmentalist and author Rachel Carson, whose book Silent Spring raised public awareness of the effects of DDT on migratory songbirds, and of other environmental issues.

The refuge's parcels include protected areas between Kittery and Cape Elizabeth, including land in Wells, Kennebunk, Kennebunkport, Biddeford, Saco, and Scarborough.