Medical Aspects of Chemical Warfare (2008) - The Black Vault

History of Chemical Warfareand 72 b c e the Romans used a toxic smoke that causedblindness and choking pulmonary symptoms wheninhaled, similar to phosgene. 6 This tactic allowed theRomans to defeat the Spanish Charakitanes in only 2days. During the 15th century c e, arsenic smokes wereused by Christians against the invading Turks at thesiege of Delium. Austrian historian von Senfftenbergwrote about the arsenic cloud: “It was a sad business.Christians must never use so murderous a weaponagainst other Christians. Still, it is quite in place againstTurks and other miscreants.” 7(p7)Greek Fire and Flaming ConcoctionsThe Greeks found ways to use their static burningconcoctions of pitch, sulfur, tow, and resinous woodchips with incendiary arrows, flaming pots shot fromcatapults, and fire cannons mounted on boats. The mostfamous of all the ancient methods of chemical warfare,Greek fire, helped ensure the success of the ByzantineEmpire. Although the exact formula for Greek fire hasbeen lost to history, the ingredients included resin,pitch, sulfur, naphtha or petroleum, quicklime, andsaltpeter. Discharged from tubes in the bows of ships,the mixture ignited on contact with water and burnedon the surface of the sea. Greek fire was invented byKallinikos (sometimes called Callinus), who arrived inConstantinople in 668 c e after fleeing Muslim-occupiedSyria. The Byzantines had used naphtha siphons andsquirt guns in 513, but Kallinikos’s idea to pump pressurizednaphtha through bronze tubes to ignite enemyships broke the Muslim siege of Constantinople in 677c e, enabling the Byzantine navy to rule the seas and theByzantine empire to flourish for many years. 3Poison Projectiles in Siege WarfareThe Renaissance spawned an interest in novel warmachines and chemical weaponry. Leonardo da Vinciproposed a machine in the 15th century to fire shellsfilled with a powder mixture of sulfur, arsenic, andverdigris (copper acetate). 8 Aimed at ships’ galleys, theprojectiles poisoned the lungs of anyone in the vicinityof the dispersed powder. In the 1600s incendiary shellsfilled with sulfur, tallow, rosin, turpentine, saltpeter,and antimony were used to start fires in sieges. Similartoxic smoke projectiles were designed and used duringthe Thirty Years War (1618–1648). In 1672, duringhis siege of the city of Groningen, Christoph Bernhardvan Galen, the Bishop of Münster, employed severaldifferent explosive and incendiary devices containingbelladonna alkaloids intended to produce toxic fumes.In response to the use of poison projectiles, the Frenchand Germans signed the Strasbourg Agreement just3 years later on August 27, 1675. This was the firstdocumented international agreement to ban the useof “perfidious and odious” toxic devices. 4 In additionto their use as gaseous poisons, militaries also usedchemicals to gain an advantage under the cover ofthick haze. In 1701 Charles XII of Sweden used chemicalsmoke screens to obscure his crossing of the DvinaRiver under a gas cloud. 9In 1854 Lyon Playfair, a British chemist, proposed acacodyl cyanide artillery shell for use against enemyships as a way to resolve the stalemate during the siegeof Sevastopol. Although British Prime Minister LordPalmerston considered the idea, the British OrdnanceDepartment rejected it, calling it as “bad a mode ofwarfare as poisoning the wells of the enemy.” 10(p22)Playfair’s response was used to justify chemical warfareinto the next century:There was no sense in this objection. It is considereda legitimate mode of warfare to fill shells with moltenmetal which scatters among the enemy, andproduced the most frightful modes of death. Whya poisonous vapor which would kill men withoutsuffering is to be considered illegitimate warfareis incomprehensible. War is destruction, andthe more destructive it can be made with the leastsuffering the sooner will be ended that barbarousmethod of protecting national rights. No doubt intime chemistry will be used to lessen the sufferingof combatants, and even of criminals condemned todeath. 10(pp22–23)A few years later, citizens of the fragmenting UnitedStates began considering the first American proposalsfor chemical warfare.Chemical Warfare Proposals in the US Civil WarNew York schoolteacher John Doughty is creditedwith developing the first American proposal for chemicalwarfare. Pitching his idea to the War Department in1862, Doughty advocated the offensive use of chlorinegas by launching an artillery shell filled with 2 to 3quarts of liquid chlorine. After the shell exploded, thechlorine gas would rout “an entrenched enemy” orward “off the attacks of iron-clad vessels and steamrams.” 9(p6) Doughty added:If the shell should explode over the heads of the enemy,the gas would, by its great specific gravity, rapidlyfall to the ground: the men could not dodge it,and their first intimation of its presence would be byits inhalation, which would most effectually disqual-11