| Show DDT Pro proves vesto to I 1 I 1 i be medical ace i say new insecticide may revolutionize living in world of tomorrow washington DDT the war developed i insecticide which may revolutionize living in the of tomorrow by controlling certain diseases is now a medical big shot and is being sprayed from trucks and airplanes to protect our soldiers but it first proved its worth scale b beneath the dirt dirty ya on n a mass X owing flowing robes of louse ridden arabs and nd ander under the drab garb of inmates af if french prisons in africa north africa with its sweating millions and unsanitary conditions was chosen the army says as the initial tough proving ground for DDT the chemical which in laboratory and small scale human tests had shown sensational promise as a killer of malaria bearing mosquitoes and typhus fever bearing body lice DDT or dichioro tri chloromethane chloro ethane was developed as an insecticide in this country early last year says the chicago tribune midway in 1943 after louse powders and mosquito and fly sprays had been developed col william S stone chief of the ardys pre ven bentive tive medicine section in north africa obtained supplies of both and undertook the venture of trying them on a broad scale I 1 strategy Is needed I 1 his little office on the steaming algerian waterfront the army says was pervaded by the ascending smell of sweating arabs and decaying fish there the american scientist mapped his strategy he know knew that american soldiers had partial protection against typhus because all of them were vac cina ted but there still was the problem of the unvaccinated natives in the african theater and he knew that most of them were crawling with lice to get at the lice which carry typhus ius stone knew he had to get down to the dusky hides of the natives his plan was to send typhus control teams or louse killers among the natives with the offer of dusting them with louse bowd powders ers free of charge stone had improvised dust guns that could be inserted up a mans sleeve or down a womans comans back so that the dusting could be done without the removal of clothing an important point in a land where the natives keep their clothes on for months at a time french colonial officials shrugged incredulously when they heard of stones plan plan to dust sheiks get nowhere with the arabs one said but stone was convinced that the sheiks and their followers would like to stop scratching so he and his typhus teams started making the rounds round of a few villages many natives fled to the hills but word soon got around that at long last an nights sleep was to be had in old araby through the courtesy of the yankees and their magic white dust native dock workers were next arid and it was found that if the men were dusted only once a month the lice could be kept at a safe level even though the men were exposed to lice in their own homes that was an all the proof the natives needed gener generally allF stone and his GI dusters did a rushing business natives flocked to the dusting stations as to a county fair all this time american soldiers were dusting their own with pocket size cans of DDT at the end of 1943 only 14 mild lases cases of typhus fever with no deaths had occurred among all the american troops there that year |
