Gassings phosgene

Rat and mouse lethality data from the well-conducted study of Zwart et al. (1990) also suggest that Haber s law is valid for phosgene. The study by ten Berge et al. (1986) has shown that the concentration-exposure-time relationship for many irritant and systemically acting vapors and gasses can be described by the relationship Cnxt=k. When the 10- to 60-min rat LC50 data are utilized in a linear regression analysis a value of the exponent, n, of 0.93 is obtained. The mouse 10- to 60-min lethality data yield a value of 1.3 for n. 

At the end of World War I, medical thought was turning to the possibility that soldiers who had been gassed with mustard, chlorine, phosgene, and other agents would develop tuberculosis. In the early postwar years, publications described efforts to identify cases of tuberculosis among gas casualties. The expected epidemic failed to appear, and attention subsided. More extensive studies, such as that of Beebe, were initiated.1 Gradually, mustard gas became the... 

Phosgene was thought to be a very effective gas with its delayed action, many men gassed were unaware of the severity of the poisoning until several hours later [756]. 

British statistics show that over 80 per cent of men fatally gassed with phosgene died on the first day in the hospital, whereas only 1 per cent of men fatally gassed with mustard died on the first day."... 

The observations on two thousand cases of exposure to war gases (186 of which were attributed to phosgene gassings) were reported shortly after the end of World War I. These studies, performed on the survivors of gas shell attacks, were limited only to clinical findings [1766]. In contrast, outside of war time, ten cases of phosgene gassings (including only one... 

February 3, 1917 A chemist was working at a new chemical product. A syphon of phosgene, required for the synthesis of this substance, burst on his table at 1.00 pm. A yellowish cloud was seen by a second person in the room to go up close to the chemist s face, who exclaimed, 7 am gassed , and both hurried out of the room. Outside, the patient sat down on a chair looking pale and coughing slightly. 

Travelling at great speed, the cloud — a mixture of chlorine and phosgene — outstripped the alarm system of gongs and klaxons and took hundreds of men unawares one man was gassed five miles behind the front line. Panic set in on the dark winter morning as shell fire cut all the telephone wires to the front. It was mid-afternoon... 

Many thousands of men continued to suffer from the effects of gassing in the First World War for the rest of their lives. One survivor of a phosgene attack, Fred Cayley,59 admitted in 1980 that he had been seeing a doctor every week since 1917. Britain is still awarding pensions to gas victims to this day. How many have never claimed but suffered and died in ignorance is not known. Modem investigations have revealed that munitions workers who are employed in the... 

---