Before Silent Spring: Pesticides and Public Health in Pre-DDT America

by James C. Whorton

Overview

Modern consumers are well aware that the food they eat is tainted by pesticidal residues; they are less aware that their great-grandparents faced the same hazard. James C. Whorton's history of this public health menace emphasizes that insecticides have been contaminating produce since the introduction of chemical pesticides in the 1860s.

The book examines the period before the publication of Rachel Carson's famous Silent Spring, tracing the origins of the residue problem and exploring the complicated network of interest groups that formed around the issue. The author shows how economic necessities, technological limitations, and pressures on regulatory agencies have brought us to "our present dilemma of seemingly having to poison our food in order to protect it."

In Part I, the agricultural and medical literature of the past century is used to analyze the emergence by 1920 of a public health danger of serious proportions. Part II draws heavily on the unpublished records of the Food and Drug Administration to document how the ineffective handling of this danger established precedents for present pesticide abuses.

Originally published in 1975.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691618296
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	03/08/2015
Series:	Princeton Legacy Library , #1669
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	306
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d)

Read an Excerpt

Before Silent Spring

Pesticides and Public Health in Pre-DDT America

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By James Whorton

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1974 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-08139-7

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CHAPTER 1

Which everywhere the farmer vexes, And all philosophy perplexes. Go where you will and search around, Where'er they cultivate the ground, In every land this curse prevails, And all attempt against it fails.

— Prairie Farmer, March, 1851

The Insect Emergency

Farmers have always lived at the mercy of the Nature they hope to exploit, determined to rule the land yet subject to the vagaries of soil and sun, wind, and rain, to sudden outbreaks of crop diseases, to unpredictable invasions of insects and other pests. The complaint of the prairie farmer above was provoked by the terrible potato blight of the 1840s, but it might have been directed with even greater accuracy at the plagues of the following decades, at the insect ravages that were to level not only potato fields, but to truly vex farmers everywhere.

Insect depredations were of course not uncommon before the mid-1800s. Visitations of locusts had been regular and devastating since Biblical days and, in recent years, American farmers had suffered heavy losses to the Hessian fly and the grain midge. Still, these damages had been only preparatory to the destruction reserved for modern times; earlier agriculture simply had not provided insects the opportunities for havoc soon to be offered.

The Agricultural Revolution, which so transformed the English countryside during the eighteenth century, was somewhat delayed in its arrival in America. Statesman-farmer George Washington partially explained why in his answer to the English farmer who "must entertain a contemptible opinion of our husbandry, or a horrid idea of our lands, when he shall be informed that not more than eight or ten bushels of wheat is the yield of an acre; but this low produce may be ascribed, and principally, too, to a cause ... namely, that the aim of the farmers in this country ... is not to make the most they can from the land, which is, or has been cheap, but the most of the labour, which is dear; the consequence of which has been, much ground has been scratched over and none cultivated or improved as it ought to have been; whereas a farmer in England, where land is dear and labour cheap, finds it his interest to improve and cultivate highly, that he may reap large crops from a small quantity of ground."

The primitiveness of American agriculture in Washington's time was due not merely to the expense of labor but, more fundamentally, to the lack of a large market for farm products. In a society in which more than 90 percent of the population was composed of farm families, production for home consumption rather than commerce was the practical way to make a living. But between 1790 and 1860, city dwellers grew from 3.3 to 16.1 percent of the population, and their demand for food could be satisfied only by a commercialization of agriculture. The necessary promotion of the farmer from provider to businessman was hastened, furthermore, by the astonishing system of transportation developed by mid-century. The turnpikes and canals opened during the 1820s through the 1840s stimulated trade between the eastern and western sections of the country, and the barge and steamboat were soon superseded by the railroad train. More than 30,000 miles of track stretched across the United States by 1860, and farmers as far west as the Iowa prairie had ready access to the markets of the eastern seaboard.

Social and technological changes thus encouraged the adoption of the revolutionized agriculture of England, with its scientific crop rotation schemes and conscientious application of fertilizers. The price of day labor continuing high, however, profitable agriculture also demanded less time-consuming methods of sowing and reaping. From steel plows and seed drills, to steel-toothed cultivators and the Hussey and McCormick reapers, agricultural inventions by the thousands followed the call for labor-saving machinery (more than 10,000 U.S. patents had been granted for harvesting machines alone by 1880). It has been estimated that the farmer of 1860 who employed the latest equipment could grow and harvest his crops with only two-thirds the labor he would have used twenty years earlier.

Unfortunately, as the critics of the machine age insisted so confidently with respect to the factory system, the new agriculture established conditions conducive to its own destruction. Mechanization fostered intensification and specialization in farming. Monocultural mass production appeared as the surest path to profits, and if few farmers could afford the huge "bonanza farms" of the northwestern wheat regions, many could at least imitate them on a modest scale. It was only through bitter experience that they learned that if large-scale cultivation of individual crops was the quickest way to pad the pocketbook, it was also a quick way to empty it. Extensive, unbroken fields canopied by the foliage of a single plant afforded ideal feeding conditions for the insect pests of that plant, and farmers whose livelihoods depended on the success of but one crop could be financially broken by a serious insect attack.

The favorable insect environment created by monoculture was further enhanced in America by westward expansion. The fulfillment of Manifest Destiny not only involved an enormous increase in the area of land under cultivation but, also, by the prerequisite clearing of forests in many areas, frequently destroyed predators of insects while forcing the insects themselves to turn to a domestic food supply. Even the marvelous new transportation system conspired with the insects, for the increase in interstate and international commerce too often allowed the transportation of insects from one state or country to another in which there existed no natural predators of the pest. In this way, the European corn borer was introduced into America and, in unintended retribution, the Colorado potato beetle into Europe. In environments free of natural checks, these and numerous other displaced species were able to live and reproduce, and destroy, with virtual impunity.

It was thus that American farmers throughout the second half of the nineteenth century found themselves besieged by such unlikely sounding foes as the currant worm, the chinch bug, the codling moth, the cotton army worm, the Colorado potato beetle, the plum curculio, and, most fearsome of all, the Rocky Mountain locust or Western grasshopper. The last adversary launched attacks of such fury during the middle years of the 1870s that the governor of Missouri was compelled to proclaim a day of public prayer and fasting "for the interposition of Divine Providence to relieve the calamities caused by the devastation of the Rocky Mountain locust," and the federal government had to send emergency shipments of food, clothing, and seeds to hundreds of Mississippi Valley farmers. The reports of these farmers, reluctant witnesses of the grasshopper's ravages, repeatedly described such occurrences as the appearance of locusts in "large swarms like masses of clouds," swarms that "crackle beneath the feet of persons walking over the prairies," and that "often impeded the trains on the Western railroads ... the insects passing over the track or basking thereon so numerously that the oil from their crushed bodies reduced the traction so as to actually stop the train, especially on an up-grade." After allowing for the romantic exaggeration common to nineteenth-century pathos, one is still touched by the jeremiads of the locusts' victims:

"The farmer plows and plants. He cultivates in hope, watching his growing grain, in graceful, wave-like motion wafted to and fro by the warm summer winds. The green begins to golden; the harvest is at hand. Joy lightens his labor as the fruit of past toil is about to be realized. The day breaks with a smiling sun that sends his ripening rays through laden orchards and promising fields. Kine and stock of every sort are sleek with plenty, and all the earth seems glad. The day grows. Suddenly the sun's face is darkened, and clouds obscure the sky. The joy of the morn gives way to ominous fear. The day closes, and ravenous locust-swarms have fallen upon the land. The morrow comes, and ah! what a change it brings! The fertile land of promise and plenty has become a desolate ... stretch of bare spindling stalks and stubs ... and old Sol, even at his brightest, shines sadly through an atmosphere alive with myriads of glittering insects."

A few years before, such eloquence would have been wasted as a cry in the wilderness, but by the 1870s the farmer's ancient lament was being enthusiastically answered by a new ally, the economic entomologist. Economic entomology was a fledgling science, an application of entomological knowledge of the structure and habits of insects to the economic problem of preventing or reducing insect depredations. It had been born during America's period of flagrant altruism, when every educated man felt duty-bound to be useful, and the first generation of economic entomologists embraced as their mission nothing less than the salvation of agriculture. They were in a sense goaded into their optimism, for the entomologist had never cut a very admirable figure before the public eye. In the century in which scientists generally were rising toward a status of popular heroes, entomologists continued to be looked upon as bearded, spectacle-wearing eccentrics who wasted their days darting about the fields waving butterfly nets. People chuckled in agreement with Oliver Wendell Holmes when he defined the entomologist as a man "who gives insects long names and short lives, a place in science and a pin through the body."

Entomologists were aware of their pitiful image. "The idea of the trifling nature of his pursuit," one analyzed, "is so strongly associated with that of the diminutive size of its objects, that an entomologist is synonymous with everything futile and childish ... how can he look for sympathy in a pursuit unknown to the world, except as indicative of littleness of mind." The economic application of his science was too good an opportunity for self-vindication to be missed, and as insect damages rose to unprecedented levels, entomologists stepped forward to offer their services. At the head of the line was Thaddeus William Harris, a man eventually to be recognized as "father of economic entomology in America." Dr. Harris was a practicing physician and, from 1831 until his death in 1856, Librarian of Harvard College. Entomology was only his avocation, but he pursued it with such ardor and competence that when the Massachusetts Zoological and Botanical Commission desired a survey of the state's harmful insects, Harris was commissioned to do the work. His Report on Insects Injurious to Vegetationw as first published in 1841 and subsequently reissued in several editions as a Treatise of somewhat longer title and broader scope. Harris' Treatisewas an encyclopedic exposition of all the destructive insects a New England farmer was likely to encounter, complete with illustrations and suggestions for combatting each pest.

If Harris brought forth economic entomology in America, the labors of others were essential in guiding the discipline to maturity. Dr. Asa Fitch, another professional physician-amateur entomologist, became the first official state entomologist when he was appointed to that position by the New York legislature in 1854. Over the course of the next sixteen years, Fitch issued fourteen reports on the life cycles and habits of New York insects, reports that were most useful in helping farmers identify and destroy some of their worst enemies, and that one state senator estimated had saved his constituents fifty thousand dollars annually. Such praise could only encourage other states to follow New York's lead, and State Entomologist was a common title by the end of the century. Most noteworthy among the early appointees to the position were Benjamin D. Walsh of Illinois and Charles Valentine Riley of Missouri, both of whom assumed their duties in 1868. Walsh died the following year (not without having made his impress on the developing science), but Riley lived on for nearly three decades and filled his years with invaluable studies and writings. Riley looked "much more like an Italian artist than like an American economic entomologist," but belied his appearance by becoming the man who, above anyone else, "sold the importance of economic entomology to the public."

Consideration of the early development of economic entomology would be incomplete without mention of Townend Glover, the first entomologist to receive a federal appointment. The mid-nineteenth century witnessed a rising governmental concern for the welfare of agriculture, first prominent in the 1839 congressional appropriation of $1,000 for the U.S. Patent Office to collect agricultural statistics, investigate methods of promoting agriculture, and distribute seeds to farmers. The Commissioner of Patents subsequently established an agricultural division within his office, and staffed it with a chemist, a botanist, and an entomologist, Glover. Hired in 1854, Glover served for five years, resigned to teach for three, then reassumed his position as government entomologist when Congress created an independent Bureau of Agriculture in 1862. Glover stayed with the Bureau (made a Department in 1876) until failing health forced his retirement in 1878. During these years, Glover traveled about the country collecting information about the most injurious insects of each region, passed this information on to farmers through the pages of the Bureau's Annual Reports, and replied to innumerable queries from puzzled agriculturalists. His contributions were even more remarkable in view of the non-entomological duties with which he was saddled by his superiors. Questions concerning such diverse matters as fruits, textiles, and birds were all channeled to Glover, and while he derived much satisfaction from the avian museum he developed, Glover and his fellow entomologists were much annoyed by the government's less-than-enthusiastic support for their science.

Entomological pique was less important for winning increased federal support than was the intervention of the Rocky Mountain locust. The severe damages inflicted by that pest finally moved Congress to fund a United States Entomological Commission, a three-man board chaired by Riley and charged with the investigation of the locust, as well as other destructive insects. The Commission began its work in 1876 and produced two thick volumes on the locust, plus one each on cotton insects and forest insects, before metamorphosing into the Division of Entomology and then the Bureau of Entomology, in the Department of Agriculture. The most meaningful yardstick for measuring the rate of growth of federal support for economic entomology is the record of fiscal appropriations for entomological work. The amounts allotted fluctuated considerably from year to year, but after 1881 never dipped as low as the eighteen thousand dollars appropriated to establish the Entomological Commission. Fifty thousand dollars was surpassed for the first time in 1889, and two hundred thousand exceeded in 1907.

The federal government encouraged the progress of economic entomology in less direct ways. The well-known Morrill Act of 1862 presented the individual states with public lands to provide income to finance agricultural schools and engineering colleges. Although a few agricultural schools had existed prior to the act, the newly formed land-grant colleges furnished a far broader base for the teaching of the agricultural sciences, including economic entomology. Of still greater import was the passage in 1887 of the Hatch Act for the establishment of state agricultural experiment stations in conjunction with the land-grant colleges. The need for research facilities at these colleges had led several states to support experiment stations prior to the Hatch Act, but the provision of federal funds dramatically increased the number of these stations and gave new impetus to entomological research. Whereas only three states appear to have given continued support to the position of state entomologist before the Hatch Act took effect, within five years after the founding of the experiment stations, forty-two states and territories could boast of official entomologists. The importance of the research done by these scientists for the development of more effective insecticides can hardly be over-emphasized.

During the pre-Hatch period, though, the contributions of entomology to agriculture fell some distance short of entomologists' expectations. Without adequate research facilities, entomologists had to rely on cooperative farmers for the testing of insect control procedures. As Glover reminded his readers, "the naturalist, studying the habits and instincts of injurious insects, may suggest remedies, but it remains to the farmer to aid him and make known the results." The success of this partnership between scientist and husbandmen depended, of course, on two variables: the ability of entomologists to devise effective "remedies," and the willingness of farmers to test these and report their findings. Neither party, sad to say, wholly lived up to its half of the bargain.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Before Silent Spring by James Whorton. Copyright © 1974 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents

• Frontmatter, pg. i
• Preface, pg. vii
• Contents, pg. xv
• 1. The Insect Emergency, pg. 3
• 2. The Lingering Dram, pg. 36
• 3. "Spray, O Spray", pg. 68
• 4. Regulatory Prelude, pg. 95
• 5. Regulatory Perplexities, pg. 133
• 6. Regulatory Publicity, pg. 176
• 7. "No Longer a Hazard", pg. 212
• Epilogue, pg. 248
• Bibliographic Notes, pg. 257
• Index, pg. 281