64 CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE 



fore easily absorbed. Many men in the first attack who 

 had sufficient presence of mind saved themselves by bury- 

 ing their faces in the earth, or by stuffing- their mufflers in 

 their mouths and wrapping them around their faces. 



There were several gas attacks of almost exactly the 

 same kind early in 1915. There was no gas between the 

 end of May, 1915, and December, 1915, and by that time 

 adequate protection had been provided. 



The first protection was primitive. It consisted largely 

 of respirators made by women in England in response to 

 an appeal by Kitchener. They were pads of cotton wool 

 wrapped in muslin and soaked in solutions of sodium car- 

 bonate and thiosulfate ; sometimes they were soaked only 

 in water. A new type appeared almost every week. One 

 simple type consisted of a pad of cotton waste wrapped 

 up in muslin together with a separate wad of cotton waste. 

 These were kept in boxes in the trenches, and on the word 

 "gas" six or eight men would make a dive for the box, 

 stuff some waste into their mouths, then fasten on the 

 pad and stuff the waste into the space around the nose 

 and mouth. But this got unpopular after a bit, when it 

 was discovered that the same bits of waste were not al- 

 iways used by the same men. During the early part of 

 ^1915 this was the only protection used. 



Then came the helmet made of a flannel bag soaked in 

 thiosulfate and carbonate, with a mica window in it. A 

 modified form of this device with different chemicals is 

 still used in the British army as a reserve protection. It 

 is put over the head and tucked into the jacket, and is 

 fool-proof as long as well tucked down. This stood up 

 very well against chlorine. 



In 1915 we got word from our Intelligence Department 

 of a striking kind. It consisted of notes of some very 

 secret lectures given in Germany to a number of the 

 senior officers. These lectures detailed materials to be 

 used, and one of them was phosgene, a gas which is very 

 insidious and difficult to protect against. We had to hurry 



