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aul Hermann Müller
was born at Olten, Solothurn, Switzerland, on January 12th,
1899. He started working in 1916 as a laboratory assistant and later worked as
an assistant chemist gaining a wealth of practical knowledge. He matriculated
in 1918 and earned his Doctorate in 1925. He began his career with J. R. Geigy
A.G., Basle, in May, 1925, to become Deputy Director of Scientific Research on
Substances for Plant Protection in 1946. Müller worked on vegetable dyes
and natural tanning agents, synthetic tanning agents, and on
pesticides. Four years of intensive work led to the synthesis of
dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) in 1939 and the basic Swiss patent was
granted in 1940. |
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Although
DDT was first synthesized in 1874 by a Viennese pharmacist, Othmar Zeidler,
he did not investigate the properties of the new substance but
simply published his synthesis. Field trials of the compound
resynthesised by Muller showed it to be effective against a wide
variety of pests including the common housefly, the louse, Colorado beetle, and mosquito. The Geigy
Company began to market the substance in 1940-41 as a 5% dust called Gesarol spray insecticide and
a 3% dust called Neocid dust insecticide. The now
universally used name, DDT, was first applied by the British
Ministry of Supply in 1943. DDT was first added
to U.S. Army supply lists in May 1943. Gahan
and colleagues, in August 1943, made the first
practical tests of DDT as a residual insecticide against adult
vector mosquitoes. The first field test in which residual DDT was applied to
the interior surfaces of all habitations and outbuildings
of a community to test its effect on Anopheles
vectors and malaria incidence was begun in Italy in the spring of
1944. During World War II, when supplies of pyrethrum were not
adequate to meet the demand, DDT proved to be of enormous value in combating typhus and malaria. In
malaria-endemic areas, spraying DDT twice a year on the inside walls
of houses could prevent mosquitoes from transmitting malaria. Indoor
residual insecticide spraying contributed to the eradication of
malaria from many countries (including the United
States) during the 1950s – 1970s. These compounds
have also had great value in agricultural entomology and they have provided a
great stimulus in the search for other insecticides.
Paul Muller was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1948 "for his discovery of the high efficiency of DDT as a contact
poison against several arthropods".
Muller married Friedel Rüegsegger
in 1927 and has two sons, Heinrich (b. 1929) and Niklaus (b. 1933), and one daughter,
Margaretha (b. 1934), all married. Paul Müller died on October 12, 1965.
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Also See:
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