A Speech by W. Lee Lewis

Winfred Lee Lewis is credited with the discovery and refinement of Lewisite, one of the most toxic gases developed during this period and one that remained in our arsenal until the treaty banning chemical weapons. The relevant parts of this speech are reproduced here to get a good understanding of the history of the effort and how the work was actually accomplished. 

The speech was found by Joel Vilensky, an accomplished scientist with whom the District of Columbia has collaborated on another chemical weapon site. He has written an excellent book on the history of Lewisite called The Dew of Death (2005). Capt. Lewis states  

So I went over to the trench warfare division of the Ordnance Dept, told them that I wanted to work in gases, was commissioned 

I was directed to study the corrosive action of gases on shell. Instead of putting pieces of shell in the liquid, as had been done, I decided to put the liquid in the actual shell, heat them up, let them stand etc. and en open them up and study the results. The second day I succeeded in gassing one of the two men I had into the hospital, and gassing most of the enthusiasm for this particular form of experimentation out of myself. So the next day when more men were sent to me I refused to take them until I was given a decent, safe place in which to work. 

One day Dr. Griffen, Head of the Department of Chemistry at the Catholic University handed me a dissertation by J. A. Nieuwlands, printed but not published, entitled. Some Reactions of Acetylene. .. 

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