As earth's population grows so does the demand for food, and the use of pesticides has become essential in meeting this demand. The first important synthetic organic pesticide was a chlorinated hydrocarbon, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane or DDT. DDT was discovered in 1939 by Swiss chemist Paul Mueller. In its early days, DDT was a popular pesticide because it was toxic to a wide range of insect pests, yet it appeared to have low toxicity to mammals. DDT was also persistent, which meant the pesticide didn't break down rapidly in the environment and therefore did not need to be reapplied often and since DDT was insoluble it did not wash off by rain or other weather conditions. Although gradually throughout time it was discovered that many insects had developed resistance to DDT, and it was discovered that DDT did in fact pose to be harmful to the ecosystem. This discovery created wide public interest and made people aware that chemicals were polluting the environment. As a resu!

lt DDT was banned for use in North America and other countries in the early 1970's. Though pesticides, such as DDT, may decrease the number of insects, throughout history it has been proven that ther

book "Silent Spring," which was published in 1962, was one of the main sources for bringing the negative effects of DDT into perspective. Rachel Carson was a scientist,

nerve poison on insects. Thus, DDT was first used heavily in World War II for preinvasion spraying, DDT was disseminated in great quantities thereafter throughout the world to combat yellow fever, typhus, elephantiasis, and other insect-vectored diseases. In India, DDT reduced malaria from 75 million cases to fewer than 5 million cases in a decade. However, the species of insects gradually developed a resistance to DDT and therefore posed difficulty in killing the insects.

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Approximate Word count = 2159
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)