George W. Merck

George W. Merck, Special Consultant to the Secretary of War, visiting Camp Detrick, Maryland. Col. Joseph D. Sears, left. 

Baldwin, and W. B. Sarles, Implicatioos of Biological Warfare, The United States and the United Nations Report Series No. 3, The International Control of Atomic Enery, Department of State, Pub. 2661 (Washington, 1946) pp. 65-71. 

Biological agents, like toxic agents, were not used in the war, but the money spent by the United States on BW, like that spent on CW, was not thrown away. Rather, the expenditures should be viewed in the light of the harm that might have come to an unprepared America through a sneak BW attack. 

Weapons available to American ground troops for delivering toxic agents included Livens projectors, grenades, land mines, mortars, rockets, and artillery shells. If gas warfare had broken out, the burden would have fallen chiefly on the 4.2-inch chemical mortars of CWS mortar battalions. 

2-inch mortar descended from the old Stokes mortar of the British Army. Britain invented the Stokes in World War I to overconie the disadvantages of gas cloud attacks. Gas clouds could be tremendously effective under the proper conditions, but they required considerable labor, were wholly dependent upon the weather, could only be used with a few gases, and, by their color and odor, sometimes warned the enemy. The Stokes had a smoothbore barrel and therefore could not fire shells with pin-point accuracy. On the other hand, it had certain advantages. Troops could easily move it and fire shells at the rapid rate of twenty a minute. Each shell held more than two quarts of toxic agent. Because of these factors a mortar could suddenly overwhelm an enemy position with a large amount of poison gas.  

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But George W. Merck didn t want to rely on professors handouts. He would create labs that would be as good as and look just like those in the university. To do so, the company brought in respected academics like Max Tishler of Harvard and Alfred Newton Richards of the University of Pennsylvania. It set up a new pharmacological lab, the Merck Institute of Therapeutic Research, with its own board of directors. 

Along with the hominess comes an inevitable sense of history. George W. Merck had his headquarters in the brick building at the end of the entrance drive, with the three... 

Two weeks after receiving Stimson s letter, on 15 May, Roosevelt gave his approval to the creation of a biological warfare research organization. The following month, Sdmson appointed George W. Merck as Director of the War Research Service. 

The Merck Report a report by George W. Merck, the Director of the War Research Service (194 ). 

Report to the Secretary of War by Mr. George W. Merck, Special Consultant for Biological Warfare, 3 Jan 1946. Cited in Department of the Army. Special Report to Congress. US Army Activity in the US Biological Warfare Programs, 1942-1977. Vol 2, annex 1. Washington, DC DA. 24 Feb 1977. Unclassified. 

Some of the material of this report appeared in Military Surgeon, 98 (1946), 237-42, and in Science, 103 (31 May 46), 662-63. See also George W. Merck, "Peacetime Implications of Biological Warfare, Chemical and Engineering News, 24 (25 May 46), 1346-49. 

Members of the Chemical Advisory Committee receiving Army Certificates of Appreciation from Brig. Gen, Alden H. Waitt, November 1945- Prom left (front) Charles S. Munson, Warren N. Watson, James W. McLaughlin, Harry L. Derby, General Waitt, Col. Harry A. Kuhn. From left (back) George W. Merck, Lammot... 

Members of the committee were H. L. Derby, chairman, E. M. Allen, H. F. Atherton, Charles Belknap, Willard H. Dow, Lammot du Pont, J. W. McLaughlin, George W. Merck, Charles S. Munson, and Warren H. Watson. 

Interest in BW continued after the war, stimulated in part by an influential report by George W. Merck. BW efforts expanded and in-... 

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