380 
and contained the names of the most promi- 
nent chemists in the country, as well as those 
of hundreds of young chemists who will later 
become prominent. 
When this organization was taken over by 
the Chemical Warfare Service in June, 1918, 
there were over 700 chemists at work on prob- 
lems having to do with gas warfare, the design 
of gas masks, protection against toxic gases, 
development of new gases and the working out 
of processes for those already used, the details 
of incendiary bombs, smoke funnels, smoke 
screens, smoke grenades, colored rockets, gas 
projectors and flame throwers, thermal methods 
for combating gas poison, gases for balloons 
and other materials directly or indirectly con- 
nected with gas warfare. 
This body of chemists reporting to Colonel 
G. A. Burrell had nearly 1,100 helpers in the 
way otf :clerical force, electricians, glass blow- 
ers, engineers, mechanics, photographers and: 
laborers, so that when it became a part of the 
Chemical Warfare Service some 1,800 persons 
were transferred, of whom over 700 were 
chemists—among them the leaders of the pro- 
fession. At the same time the gas defense 
operations of the Medical Department under 
Colonel Bradley Dewey, consisting chiefly of 
the large scale manufacture of gas masks and 
gas mask chemicals, the gas offense proving 
grounds under Major William S. Bacon, and 
the gas defense training under Major J. H. 
Walton were also transferred to the new 
Chemical Warfare Service. The story has 
been told in detail in the September number of 
The Journal of Industrial and Engineering 
Chemistry and need not be repeated here. 
Shortly after this work of the Bureau of 
Mines was begun the development of the Ord- 
nance and Medical Department created an 
additional demand for chemists. The chief 
of the Trench Warfare Section, Lieutenant 
Colonel E. J. W. Ragsdale, early called for 
chemists to go to England and France in a 
commissioned capacity to obtain necessary in- 
formation. Soon other chemists were re- 
quired for the planning and building of gas 
plants and the manufacture of chemicals. 
The Trench Warfare Section continued this 
SCIENCE 
[N. 8S. Von. XLVIII. No. 1242 
work in greatly increasing personnel until the 
early part of 1918, when the chief of the newly 
formed Chemical Service Section was trans- 
ferred to the Ordnance Department and given 
charge of the production of chemicals for gas 
warfare. A new arsenal known as Edgewood 
Arsenal was established for this purpose. 
Hundreds of chemists and engineers were em- 
ployed, and the arsenal had become almost a 
city in size, with enormous plants ready for 
operation, when it too was transferred from 
Ordnance to the newly organized Chemical 
Wartare Service, in June, 1918. 
It was a real epoch in the history of chemis- 
try in warfare when, as a result of conferences 
held at the Bureau of Mines with officers from 
the Medical Corps, War College, General 
Staff, Navy and civilian chemists, the Chem- 
ical Service Section was established as a unit 
of the National Army, with Lieutenant Col- 
onel Wm. H. Walker, formerly of Massachu- 
setts Institute of Technology, as chief of the 
American branch reporting to Colonel Potter 
of the Gas Warfare Division, and Lieutenant 
Colonel R. F. Bacon as chief of the Chemical 
Service Section in France reporting to Colonel 
A. A. Fries, head of the Gas Warfare Division 
overseas. 
This was the first recognition of chemistry 
as a separate branch of the military service in 
any country or any war. 
Later, Colonel Walker, as before stated, was 
transferred to the Ordnance Department, and 
was replaced by Lieutenant Colonel M. T. 
Bogert. The latter was in charge of the 
American branch of the Chemical Service See- 
tion at the time this section, together with all 
of the gas research laboratories and personnel 
of the Bureau of Mines, and the plant and field 
operations of the Ordnance and Medical De- 
partment pertaining to gas warfare, were 
united under Major General William Sibert, 
under the new title of Chemical Warfare Serv- 
ice. 
It can not be brought out too strongly that 
the Chemical Service Section of the National 
Army was the first organized military body 
established for the sole purpose of relating 
chemistry to warfare. It took as an insignia 
