Paul Hermann Mller
Müller, Paul Hermann (1899-1965), a Swiss chemist, won the 1948 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his discovery that dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) could be used as an insecticide. Use of DDT helped to increase world food production and helped suppress insect-borne diseases.
The son of a Swiss Federal Railway employee, Müller worked in the laboratories of several Swiss industrial firms before completing his education. After earning a doctorate from Basel University in 1925, he joined the J. R. Geigy Corporation, where he remained until his retirement in 1961. He spent the final years of his life doing research in a personal laboratory he established at his home in Oberswil, Switzerland.
After doing research on dyes and tanning agents, Müller worked on disinfectants and pesticides. In 1935, he began research aimed at discovering an inexpensive, long-lasting, odorless insecticide that would kill insects without being toxic to plants or animals, unlike the arsenic-based insecticides available at the time. In 1939, he found that dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) was effective against flies and other insects. A German chemist had first prepared the compound in 1873, but its insecticide potential had not been detected. Two DDT-based products were marketed in 1942, two years after the basic Swiss patent was secured. They were put to use during World War II (1939-1945), when they helped combat typhus and malaria. In 1948, Muller won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine “for his discovery of the high efficiency of DDT as a contact poison against several arthropods.”
As early as 1946, Müller had been aware of the possibility that a stable insecticide like DDT might accumulate in the environment with adverse effects on animal life and food chains. By 1970, it was banned in several countries and supplanted by new synthetic insecticides.