THE | CONQUEST! OF TYPHUS
To. the wonder Orugs pf:
-cine ya st now add ‘D.
letter, lepidamiold gists fi
chloro-dipheyyi-tr chioroel
killer (Which ‘made it pogeihie
Army to sav¢ Naples from thi
of typhus. Here we havo andthe ¢
of & lag’ between a digcgvery
application. ' IDT waa tirat ay
‘in 187 by a'lyoung He enti; O hman
Zetdler, ‘of Btrashourg.’ ‘It (bas taken
nearly seventy’ years to; dist over : ‘ite
remarkable properties as an frigec cide, /
and this) after hundreds’ of idifferent
compounds had béeeh tried ‘agdindt the
typhus-carrying louse.

DDT seems! almost toa gopd fo be
trué, It. car |kill :the Japanese beetie,
whi h, ‘has thus far resisted all efforts
to control . it; fliep (spray walis| with
DDT and no fly will go near ithe n for
three months); moths of. the fruit
and! clothes jdestpoying variety; the
boll; weevil, mbsquitos, termites, ifieas,
bugs of any kind. ‘Neapolitans | arel now
thrawing DDT, at brides instead of ‘rice,
runs the story. Mayhe it ig: ‘because
nobody in Italy ia wasting food {these
daya; maybe it is because of gratitude.
At any rate, it looks bad for agricul. -
tural pests as.well'as for all thie thbents
that carry diseasa germs: arid inject.
them ihto the bléod of: animals |
men, If the tales of DDT miracles
borne out, there ought tol be n0 excuse
for any, insect-borne disease, A pure
fly ought to. become a curiosity; |
ought to lead flealess lives of bliss.

Though the insecticidal properties of
DDT were discovered in Swhtzerland
in 1939, when the potata crops ‘was
threatened, with destruction | by; the
Colorado heetle, the scientists of the
Rocketeller Foundation muat be; ¢red-
ited with || the miracle performed in
Naples and described in the Science
Department of today’s TIMES. Wrth
Rockefeller aid the Army set ‘up mass
delousing stations in Naples and treated
1,500,000 at the rate of 50,000 a :day.
DDT was sprinkled in cldthes right on
the person. and did its louse-re elling
even after. eight | washings. ; i hus,
more dreaded than ‘bullets in ahy army,
is now simply unknown among. our sol-
diers and sailors.

We have not heard the end of this
story, by long odds. When. the War is
over, much of Europe will have to
be delouged and ‘immunized : ‘against
typhus. ‘It is not likely that the tright-
ful ravages of typhus after. the lest
wat, when whole . communities | i were
decimated, will be repeated, “Wei shall
still have! our regreta about the! jong
delay in making the most iof DDT after
its first | synthesis. | Tt is! the’ story of
sulfanilamide all over, again~the istory
ofa chemist} whoa had isynthesized| what
he thought wan only la dye but Which
‘turned out to be the first advance made
r chemotherapy sines Ehrlich - discov-
ered 606! [It there is any toral So
it is that half a’ dozen acientiats ork-
ing together as 9 team 1 are more likely
to make thy utmost ude of a: new dis-
covery than one prima donia‘ of the
laboratory,