Short Stories of Science and Invention

A Collection of Radio Talks by

Charles F. Kettering

INDEX

Weekly, from September 1942 to July 1945, Charles F. Kettering gave five-minute intermission talks about Science and Invention during the radio broadcasts of the General Motors Symphony of the Air.

Kettering invented the first automobile self-starter, and for 31 years directed a research laboratory for General Motors.

These radio talks are a fascinating legacy from the mind of a prolific inventor. The obvious anachronisms now add a historical perspective of the war-time period in which they were written.

These web pages now preserve some of the most popular stories for a new generation to read The text and art come from a General Motors booklet of selected talks. (Reprint, March 1959)

59. D.D.T.
A Radio Talk by Charles F. Kettering

War has always been a scourge. It not only destroys lives and property in a direct manner through shot, shell, bombs and fire but it often leaves in its wake death and disease in many other forms. Among these, typhus has probably been the greatest killer, and, malaria, another destroyer, offers a constant menace because of its prevalence in the tropics. The cause of these threats to human life are the many insects that carry disease. In contrast to other great conflicts, we hear little about the loss of life due to pestilence in this war. Why is this?

As in so many cases we won't find the answer in one of today's scientific discoveries. Here we shall have to go back more than seventy years and look over the shoulder of a chemical student, Othmar Zeidler, performing an experiment in Strasbourg. Young Zeidler on this particular day in 1874 produced a new chemical which he recorded in his notes as dichlorodiphenyl trichloroethane - D.D.T. for short. But he saw no use for it, and the formula lay dormant in the records of the Chemical Society for sixty-five years.