The book I read is called "Silent Spring," written by Rachel Carson and published in 1962.
The whole book was an alarmed appeal to everybody who used insecticides and especially who used DDT.
The book mostly describes how DDT is used by people and how it enters the food chain and causes cancer and genetic damage. It also describes how other chemicals such as Dieldrin and Aldrin kill birds, fishes, and humans. An example of how DDT (= dichloro-diphenyl-trichloro-ethane) can kill humans is the story of a woman who sprayed DDT for spiders in her basement and died a month later because of lukemia.
With "Silent Spring" Rachel Carson wanted to stop the use of insecticides because these chemicals not only kill the pests at which they were aimed for but often kill beneficial organisms as well.
After she published "Silent Spring," her 3rd book about the environment, the American government regulated the use of Aldrin and Dieldrin and stopped the use of DDT because they noticed that Rachel Carson was absolutely right with what she wrote in her book.
English: Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring. O...
Douglas's review contributed to the success of Sil...
Photo taken at Rachel Carson's 100th Birthday cele...I think this book is boring but also very intersting. She describes many actions in which DDT and other insecticides are used but after a whole bunch of actions it's going to be boring. This book can scare everybody because it is very alarming. When I read this book I wasn't really scared because Rachel Carson describes the actions in the 1960's and this is over 40 years ago and today there are changes.
Basically I enjoyed reading this book.