Arsenical insecticides have been used in agriculture for centuries. The earliest available records indicate use of arsenic sulfides in China as early as A.D. 900, and incorporation of arsenic oxide in ant bait in Europe in 1699 (Shepard, 1939).  The first insecticidal use of the copper acetoarsenite pigment commonly known as Paris green [(CH3COO)2Cu.3Cu(AsO2)2] appears to have been in 1867 on Colorado potato beetle in the USA.  Paris green sprays were soon adopted by fruit growers for control of codling moth (Cydia pomonella) in apple, a use that continued through about 1900.  Paris green also was used internationally for mosquito abatement, where it was applied directly to water bodies as a powder or mixed with moist sand, as well as for control of other insects.

Lead arsenate (LA) was the most extensively used of the arsenical insecticides.