Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
#97: From vaccines to fire extinguishers to bug repellents
they're all in the aerosol can.
In fact,
13 billion of them are produced every year.
Pressing the nozzle opens up a tube,
releasing pressurized liquid
in the form of a fine spray.
A spring reseals the can when the nozzle is released.
So how did it change history?
The classic example would be the bug bombs that they started using during World War II.
In the Pacific Theater, the mosquito was his big an enemy as Hirohito.
Malaria plagued pacific troops.
But in the early 1940's mosquito prevention was primitive.
Insecticide was dispensed with simple hand pumps
Then american ingenuity
came to the rescue
introducing
the first aerosol can:
the bug bomb.
It's a heavy thing. It's very solid metal. it was originally a
carbon dioxide container and they put a valve on the end and that was from a stove
burner. And it just contained pyrethrum, sesame oil, and freon,
and then this valve was opened up, and you let out as much as you wanted,
and kill all the mosquitoes there. The bug bombs impact was immediate.
malaria infections decreased dramatically. Incredibly
50 million bug bombs were manufactured by the end of the war
This device is often credited with a large part of our victory in the Pacific Theater