Neocid Spray (DDT) – 1000 in one blow

That old original posters often evoke a sense of nostalgia is in the nature of things and forms part of their charm. Then there are pieces – mostly commercial or referendum posters – that simply seem anachronistic; less because of their design than because of the advertised product or the political topic. And finally, there are posters that make you – always from today's standpoint, mind you – shake your head in disbelief. Like this piece, which at the end of the 1940s advertised the DDT product Neocid made by the Basel chemical company Geigy («1000 at one stroke» – the brave little tailor could certainly pack it in). Because of suspected carcinogenic effects, accumulation in the food chain, and reproductive disorders, DDT has been banned not only in Switzerland since 1972, after having been the most widely used insecticide in the world for decades.

Actually, dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane has been known since 1874 – but it wasn't until late 1939 that Geigy chemist Paul Hermann Müller discovered its insecticidal effect. Production was comparatively simple, but toxicity to insects was high, while that for vertebrates was considered negligible (if not entirely denied – but that is another topic). Thus, in 1942, Geigy launched the now-patented agent under the names Gesarol (agricultural pesticide) and Neocid (hygiene sector), where it soon came to be regarded as a miracle cure (quite comparable to penicillin – after all, Müller received the Nobel Prize in 1948): in agriculture or in the fight against malaria, but also in use directly on humans, such as for delousing.

Until the US biologist Rachel Carson pointed out the risks of using DDT in her book «Silent Spring» in 1962 – the beginning of the end for the substance, as well as the initial spark for a global environmental movement. In the so-called emerging and developing countries, DDT continues to be sprayed against malaria mosquitoes.

And Ferdi Afflerbach? He was a Basel-based commercial artist (1922 – 2005) in the tradition of Donald Brun and Herbert Leupin: the illustrative element was and always remained important to him, even when the trend toward the cool, matter-of-fact «Swiss Style» gathered momentum in the 1950s, whether in its Zurich imprint (Josef Müller-Brockmann, Richard Paul Lohse) or its Basel imprint (Armin Hofmann, Emil Ruder).

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