WEBVTT

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[This film is restricted]

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[War Department
Film Bulletin
F.B. NO. 195]

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[Produced by Army Pictorial Service Signal Corps]

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[DDT -- Weapon Against Disease]

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[Music]

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[Narrator:] This is the story of a miraculous white powder that is helping to win the war.

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Its name is dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane.

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For short, DDT.

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It may one day prove our greatest weapon towards victory over an enemy more murderous even than the facists.

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Against disease.

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Time was when disease conditions in other lands didn't concern us much.

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The Black Death, bubonic plague of India, the Orient, and Africa,

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periodically sweeping through the crowded millions.

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Transmitted from the rat to the human by the flea.

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[Music]

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Typhus, common to nearly every densely populated city on Earth.

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Explosive epidemics wiping out almost entire populations.

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Transported by the louse.

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Malaria, scourge of the tropics, carried by the Anopheles mosquito.

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And the many filth diseases that can be born by flies, including the dread cholera.

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But these were all in far off places with strange names.

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And maybe, in the security of our homes and families, we shuddered at the thought that such things could happen in the 20th century.

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And then suddenly, they weren't in another world after all.

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Our own men were out there, all over the globe, and disease was as much a menace as the enemy's bullets.

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We learned the full import of that at Bataan.

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[Music]

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Of our 36,000 troops left in the last days of Bataan, 20,000 were out on their feet or down with malaria.

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The mosquito had helped the Jap to bring on the end.

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The flea, the louse, the fly could bring similar disaster wherever our men went.

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In anticipation of this, the nation's scientific resources had already been marshaled by the war department to meet the challenge.

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Something new must be found to fight the menace of the disease-bearing insect

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to take the place of insecticides no longer available because of the war.

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Through the National Research Council, this United States Department of Agriculture Laboratory at Orlando, Florida

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was one of the several places in which the work was centered.

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It was the job of this laboratory to raise the healthiest, sturdiest specimens of the common disease-bearing insects

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and then to find the means of killing them.

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Hundreds of insecticides were tried out here, developed from materials sent in from all parts of the world.

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Some were fairly effective, even good.

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Compounds and solutions that dropped a mosquito in mid-air, could stun a louse, quickly dispatch a fly or a flea.

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But something better was needed, something that would kill all four insects and could be produced in the enormous quantities needed.

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If possible, something that might continue to kill, for a few hours anyway, or better, a few days after application.

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November 16th, 1942 was the day that brought in a new insecticide sample from Switzerland.

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An accompanying letter gave some of the details.

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One feature sounded particularly interesting, if a little unbelievable.

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That was the claim that after a single application in a barn, this insecticide had continued to kill flies for a month thereafter.

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But scientists were accustomed to hearing exaggerated claims.

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The new material was given a code number and started along the testing routine.

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First, an elementary test against lice. A solution of the material is placed in a beaker, and the lice are added.

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Yes, it kills, but of course you can't catch all the lice in the world and put them in beakers.

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Now, to apply it in powder form on the body of a volunteer.

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The lice are placed in a sleeve on the subject's arm.

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Another sleeve, which contains the standard army de-lousing powder for purposes of comparison, is removed first.

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The results are as good as expected, with only a few lice surviving.

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Now for the other sleeve, dusted with powder prepared from the new material.

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[Music]

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Results: every last louse dead.

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A fuller test.

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More volunteers harboring lice wear suits of underwear dusted with the new material.

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Results: again, every last louse dead.

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The new material, then, is already an important discovery, a better louse powder than any now in use.

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But how good is against the other vicious three: the mosquito, the flea, the fly?

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First, is it adaptable, readily solvent for use in solution form?

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Yes. Kerosene, diesel oil, even fuel and crankcase oil dissolve it easily.

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That's promising.

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It's easy to get these materials in the field. An emulsion is readily prepared with both fresh and salt water.

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It has shown really remarkable qualities for dispersion and suspension in every medium tested.

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Very valuable if its killing properties in these agents prove out.

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It's action against the common pest mosquito is excellent.

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Dissolved in fuel oil, a tenth of a pound per acre is enough to kill every mosquito in the area.

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But it's the Anopheles mosquito that carries malaria. What about that?

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A little stronger dosage is needed, but it's still amazingly potent. This is a find.

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In dust form, it has many advantages over the old standby Paris Green against the malaria carrying Anopheles.

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The laboratory scientists now know the material is good, very good. That's definite.

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And now, what if...?

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That information that came in the letter with it about still killing weeks after the first application.

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In a testing chamber, just a box with a glass cover, a light spray of the material in 5%emulsion was applied.

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Then the scientists waited 48 hours.

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At the end of that time, flies were put in the box, big healthy flies.

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In five minutes, they were in violent convulsions.

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In a little while, they'll all be dead.

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Check.

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Mosquitoes next, the malaria kind.

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They didn't last as long as the flies, and another day had gone by. The spray was a day older.

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Cockroaches the next day.

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Sure death.

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And six days after the original spraying, lice were put in.

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The lethal effects of the insecticide hadn't weakened an appreciable amount.

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And this was not the end of its fantastic strength.

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Fourteen months later, one year and two months after that original spray, without a drop being added,

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the new insecticide was still killing all comers almost as quickly as on the first day.

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Another thing.

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Clothing impregnated with an emulsion of the substance

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was still killing lice after the clothing had been thoroughly laundered from six to eight times.

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Science had come on its greatest weapon against the insect killer, an incredible new weapon against disease.

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The War Department was quick to put the new substance into use in the field, under the abbreviated name DDT.

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But let a medical officer tell you how effective it has proved.

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[J.S. Simmons:] DDT is the most powerful of the new weapons which the Army is now using in its war on the insect-born diseases.

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The development of this weapon affords a spectacular example of the effective ways in which all the scientific agencies

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of this country have cooperated with the medical departments of the armed forces.

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Because we are armed with DDT, we no longer fear typhus fever.

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This chemical affords protection to American soldiers against the mosquitoes that carry malaria, yellow fever, dengue, and filariasis,

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and against the ever-present flies that spread certain filth diseases.

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DDT is now being used by the Army in all of our tropical theaters.

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However, there is still much to be learned about it.

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And therefore, our research collaborators continue their investigations in the laboratory and in the field.

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We already know of the miraculous results it has produced,

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but its full potentialities against all the insects that spread disease must be determined.

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I consider this amazing chemical the most valuable contribution of our wartime medical research program

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for the future health and welfare not only of this nation, but of the entire world.

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[Narrator:] This part of the world has already experienced the effectiveness of DDT in one of the miracles of modern medical history.

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This was Naples, Italy shortly after the Allied occupation.

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Its crowded population lacked almost everything for the safe-guarding of public health:

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food, fuel, blankets, housing, clothing, sanitation.

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And refugees from all parts of Italy were swarming in.

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With them, the louse. The perfect set-up for epidemic.

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And then it struck: typhus.

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The Naples area was immediately placed off-limits to Allied military personnel.

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Within armies, typhus has won and lost more wars than all the strategy and weapons ever developed.

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[Public air raid shelter. Off limits to U.S. troops by order of the Comdg. Off. Metropolitan Area, P.B.S.]

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[Music]

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But for the jammed civilian population of Naples, there seemed little hope.

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Winter was only arriving when typhus hit Naples, and never in history had a typhus epidemic ended before the warmth of the spring.

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Then DDT was brought in.

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Dusting with DDT was begun at once.

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First, every case of typhus was tracked down, and every person who had been exposed was rid of the murderous louse by the powder.

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Next, the 40,000 Italians dwelling in jampacked air raid shelters were de-loused.

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[Music]

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Finally, 43 DDT stations were set-up throughout the city, and the entire remaining population was dusted.

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In January, when the large scale dusting started, 60 new cases of typhus a day were being reported.

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Another month, and it might well have been 600 or 6,000 cases a day.

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Yet, by the middle of February, the menace of the epidemic was over.

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DDT had won by not only removing the lice when dusted, but by continuing to kill long after application, preventing re-infestation.

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In the Pacific, DDT goes to war against malaria in a big way: by airplane.

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On D-Day at Morotai, we hit both enemies at the same time: the Jap and disease.

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[Explosion]

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Simultaneous with the bombing of our two-legged enemy, we went after the mosquito with DDT spray.

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And as a result of the spray, malaria was already under control before our troops set foot on the island.

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[Airplane engine rumbling]

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The Japanese did not live long enough to enjoy the island rid of mosquitoes by DDT.

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Yes, today, DDT is necessarily a military weapon.

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We're turning it out by the thousands of tons, but every ounce is needed for the war effort.

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When the fascist is finally beaten, though, DDT will be available to all.

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Already it has has been found to be highly effective against many kinds of agricultural insect pests.

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[Music]

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It will aid in stamping out disease around the world.

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[Music]

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And the homecoming of the healthiest army in military history will be in no small part due to DDT,

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our great new weapon for war today and peace tomorrow.

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[Music]

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[The End
F. B. NO. 195]

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[This film is restricted]