DDT was used to combat louse-borne typhus fever which at that time had reached epidemic proportions in parts of Southern Africa.[5] His 1947 paper on the conversion delivered to the Chemical, Metallurgical and Mining Society of South Africa, earned him the Society's Gold Medal. A subsequent paper was presented to the South African Institute of Engineers and dealt with the production of ethylene, making him a pioneer in the large-scale production of synthetic organic chemicals.