DDT WWII soldier
A U.S. soldier is demonstrating DDT-hand spraying equipment while applying the insecticide.
The use of DDT increased enormously on a worldwide basis after World War II, because of its effectiveness against the mosquito that spreads malaria and lice that carry typhus. The World Health Organization claims that the use of DDT saved 25 million lives.
During World War I typhus caused three million deaths in Russia and more in Poland and Romania. De-lousing stations were established for troops on the Western front but the disease ravaged the armies of the Eastern front, with over 150,000 dying in Serbia alone. Fatalities were generally between 10 to 40 percent of those infected, and the disease was a major cause of death for those nursing the sick. Between 1918 and 1922 typhus caused at least 3 million deaths out of 20–30 million cases. In Russia after World War I, during the civil war between the White and Red armies, typhus killed three million, largely civilians. Even larger epidemics in the post-war chaos of Europe were only averted by the widespread use of the newly discovered DDT to kill the lice on millions of refugees and displaced persons.
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