From Poison Gas to Platinum Drugs

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, 

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues. 

Mustard gas was never intended as a killing agent but rather as a disorienting and debilitating agent. Its low volatility (unlike the other poison gases 

Gas is a more merciful weapon than a high explosive shell, and compels an enemy to accept a decision with less loss of life than any other agency of war. If it is fair for an Afghan to shoot down a British soldier from behind a rock and then cut him to pieces as he lies wounded on the ground, why is it not fair...to fire a shell which makes the said native sneeze. 

There is no evidence that Churchill had experienced the effects of gas first hand, but he had experienced the assaults of wild tribesmen in his youth, and clearly had no love for the natives of Afghanistan. 

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