June 23, 1921] 



NATURE 



5^7 



tute of 

 France, 

 France 



with the influence of the war on the pre- 

 sent condition and future development of 

 that science. The volume under review is the 

 work of Prof. C. Moureu, member of the Insti- 

 France, professor of the College de 

 president of the Chemical Society of 

 and of the International Union of 

 Chemistry. No one is better fitted to expound the 

 mutual relations of chemistry and war than Prof. 

 Moureu, for no one during its course took a more 

 active part in placing all the resources of that 

 science at the disposal ot his country. As is now 

 well recognised, all the Allies vied with Germany 

 in enlisting the services of their chemists in the 

 prosecution of the war, and their united energy, 

 resourcefulness, and skill eventually crushed their 

 adversary. As the war was conducted, military 

 valour, tenacity, and intelligent direction would 

 not alone have decided the issue. Germany had 

 imported a new element into the struggle which 

 gave her an enormous initial advantage. The 

 services of her great chemical manufacturing 

 establishments had been deliberately and 

 sedulously linked up for years previously with the 

 war which was being prepared for in such a 

 manner that, on its outbreak, all their appoint- 

 ments and machinery could at once be made avail- 

 able for its ruthless prosecution by every means 

 which the diabolical ingenuity of their chemists 

 could suggest. 



April 22, 191 5, which first saw the yellowish- 

 green suffocating cloud of chlorine slowly wafted 

 from the German trenches between Bixschoote and 

 Langemark, is a black-letter day in the history 

 of warfare. The infamous action of the Germans, 

 done in cynical disregard of all international effort 

 to mitigate the horrors of war, shocked the con- 

 science of the civilised world. Whatever trace of 

 knightly prowess or chivalry was left in modern 

 war was thereby destroyed. To employ poisons 

 against your enemy was the work of savages. 

 What, it may be asked, was the ethical value of 

 the boasted Kultur of a nation which could not 

 only initiate, but also strive to develop and to 

 intensify the evil of such agencies by all the means 

 that its scientific knowledge and skill could sug- 

 gest? The following table, taken from Prof. 

 Moureu 's book, giving a list of the chemical 

 poisons, solid, liquid, and gaseous, which the Ger- 

 mans flung at their adversaries in the course of 

 the war, requires no comment — at least to the 

 organic chemist at all familiar with the noxious 

 characters of such products. Their physiological 

 action became only too well known by bitter 

 experience. 



NO. 2695, VOL. 107] 



Date 

 when 

 first 

 used 



on the 

 field 

 of I 



battleJ 



I915 i 

 April 

 June 

 June 



July 



Aug. 



Aug. 



Aug. 



1916 

 July 



Dec. 

 1917 

 May 



July 



Sept. 



Sept. 



1918 

 April 



April 



June 

 Sept. 



Name of 

 substance. 



Chemical formula. 



Physiological 

 action. 



Chlorine (gas) Clj Suffocating 



Bromine (liquid) Brj Suffocating 



Henzylbromide Cgflj — CHjBr Lachr>matory 



(liquid) 

 Bromoacetone 



(liquid) 

 Methyl chloro- 

 sulphonate 

 (liquid) 

 Chloromethyl 

 chloroformate | 

 (liquid) 

 Bromomethyl Cflg— CO— CHBr— CH31 Suffocating, 

 ethylacetone 

 (liquid) 



CII3— CO— CHjBr 



/CI 



so/ 



^OCH, 

 CI— COOCHoCl 



Suffocating, 



lachrymatory 



Suffocating 



Suffocating 



Trichloromethyl 



chloroformate 



(liquid) 



Phosgene (gas) 



Chloropicrin 



(liquid) 

 " Mustard gas" : 

 (yperite) 



(liquid) I 



Diphenylchloro-! 

 arsine (solid) : 

 I^henyldichloro- 

 arsine (liquid) 

 Phenylcarbyl- 

 amine chloiide 

 (liquid) 



Ethylarsine 



dichloride 



(liquid) 

 Ethylarsine 



dibromide 



(liquid) 

 Diphenylarsine 

 cyanide (solid) 

 N-Ethylcarbazol 



(solid) 



CI— COOCCl, 



COClj 



CCljNOa 



.CHi-CHjCl 



\CH2.CIIjCl 

 (CcHs),AsCl 



C6H5.A.SCI2 



C.HjN : C : CU 



CjHsAsClj 



CjHjAsBra 



(C,H5)2AsCN 



\ / 

 NCjHs 



lachrymatory 

 Suffocating 



Suffocating 



Suffocating^F 

 lachrj'matory 

 Suffocating* 

 ' lachrymat«lry, 

 j vesicant ..„ 



ISuffocatiag, 

 sternutatory 



NausecJas and 

 toxic3~ 



' Tosse, 



: ste^iulatory 



! Tdxic, 



I s^rnutatory 



r^ternutatory 



I Sternutatory 



Lord Kitchener at first refused to sanction re- 

 prisals of a like nature. But the French were 

 prompt to meet the new danger. They realised 

 that such reprisals were imperatively necessary in 

 self-defence. Although, as w^as the case with all 

 the Allies, France was totally unprepared for such 

 savagery, before the end of April, 191 5, she had 

 organised means of protection and of counter- 

 aggression in which the author of the book under 

 review took a leading part. 



Considerations of sj^ace preclude any detailed 

 account of the way in which the dastardly action 

 of the Germans was met and finally mastered. By 

 the united efforts of the Allies, working in con- 

 cert, the Germans were eventually taught a lesson 

 which made their leaders bitterly regret that they 

 had ever resorted to " poison gas " as an offensive 



