The Use of Asphyxiants in Warfare

Abstract

THE use of asphyxiating gases by the Germans in forcing back the French lines to the north of Ypres has given rise to much conjecture as to the nature of the gases employed, and in a long article in a Sunday paper it is surmised that the gas used was carbon monoxide. The only foundation that can exist for such an opinion is that carbon monoxide is one of the most virulent gaseous poisons known, and that less than 1 per cent, in air rapidly proves fatal, but inasmuch as all the explosives in general, use produce it in large quantities, the smokeless powders in use by England France, and Germany, giving approximately 50 per cent of the permanent gases formed as carbon monoxide, it is hard to believe that the enormous volume produced by firing the charge in the gun should have no deleterious effect on. those using it, whilst the much smaller quantity given on the bursting of the shell should asphyxiate the enemy. The fact is, that carbon monoxide is slightly lighter than air, and when driven out by the explosion in a heated condition diffuses upwards so rapidly that scarcely a trace can be found at the breathing level, but when evolved underground in a confined space many accidents have been caused by its poisonous properties.