POWs who spent months without a shower appreciated DDT-aided removal of lice, just as Marines fighting in the jungle-strewn islands in the Pacific held the insecticide DDT in high regard — the “atomic bomb of pesticides” they called it. The chemical was discovered long before, back in the 1870s, but Paul Muller of the J. R. Geigy Dye Factory (now Novartis) was the first to discover it as an effective insecticide. His invention came not a moment too soon, as his native Switzerland was suffering from pest-induced crop shortages and nearby Russia was suffering from a typhus outbreak.

On this day, October 28, in 1948, in recognition for his discovery of DDT’s effective insect-control properties, Paul Muller was awarded the Nobel Prize. Notably, he was the first non-doctor to ever receive a prize in that field, as well as the first recipient whose research was aimed for profit.

Millions of pounds of the stuff were sprayed all over the U.S. on fields and farms, and at least on one occasion — to demonstrate its safety — on children playing in swimming pools. By the 1970s some serious doubts appeared on the efficacy of DDT: it did not dissolve easily, and tended to build up in the fatty tissues of fish and birds in the wild until it killed them. Buildup in humans has been noted, too, and linked to neurological damage in babies, cancer, and diabetes. Use of DDT has now been banned in the United States and Europe, but is still in use in India, North Korea, and possibly elsewhere.