Lewisite, chemical warfare research

Jones, Chemical Warfare Research during World War I, 176-79. The Story of the Development Division, Chemical Warfare Service, 180-82, gives a brief overview of the Development Division, which used General Electric facilities. (The report notes incorrectly that Lewisite was dubbed G-34, which was actually the code name for mustard gas. To fool the potential spies. Lewisite and related chlorarsines were new G-34, PI, and P2. Chlorpicrin was SI phosgene L3.) The CWS also began construction on another plant for Lewisite (diphenylchloroarsine) in Croyland, Peimsylvania. Crowell, America s Munitions, 399 McPherson, Report of the Director of Outside Plants, pp. 3-A, NARA, RG 175, entry 8, box 14. Harry M. St. John, Standard Methods for the Manufacture of New G-34, Development Division, Chemical Warfare Service, United States Army, Nela Park, Cleveland, Ohio, approved by F. M. Dorsey, March 29, 1919, a copy of which is held at the U S. Army Military History Institute,... 

The foundation of the CWC s inspection activities was based around the declaration by member states of their chemical weapons capabilities and activities. Nations with chemical warfare programmes were required to declare their production, storage and destruction facilities, which would then receive top monitoring priority. Nevertheless, the CWC did allow states to maintain research programmes to ensure the integrity of defensive equipment such as gas masks and gas detectors, but these activities were also to be closely monitored since they involved work with the chemical agents listed on Schedule l.9 Otherwise, all other warfare agents, mustard gas, Lewisite, soman, sarin, tabun, VX and the capability to produce them were to be eliminated under the watchful eyes of international inspectors (Table 8.1).10 The convention thus defined chemical weapons as any toxic chemical, or its precursors, intended for purposes other than those not prohibited under this convention for... 

In this report, the Subcommittee on Chronic Reference Doses for Selected Chemical-Warfare Agents of the National Research Council s (NRC s) Committee on Toxicology reviews the scientific validity of the Army s interim values for the six chemical-warfare agents—GA, GB, GD, VX, sulfur mustard, and lewisite. The NRC report is intended to be useful to the Army in making site-specific cleanup decisions. 

The results of the subcommittee s evaluations are presented in Chapters 2 through 9. Chapter 2 reviews the method used by the Army to derive RfDs, and also inclndes a discussion of the benchmark dose method as a point of departure for calculating RfDs. Chapters 3 throngh 6 evaluate the RfDs for the nerve agents GA, GB, GD, and VX. Chapter 7 evalnates the RfD and slope factor for sulfnr mustard, and Chapter 8 provides an evaluation of the RfD for lewisite. Research recommendations are presented at the end of Chapters 3-8 for each of the specific chemical-warfare agents. 

Lindherg, G., Runn, P., Winter, S., Falhnan, A. (1997). Basic information on lewisite - a chemical warfare agent with effects similar to mustard gas. Defense Research Establishment, Division of NBC Defense, Umea, Sweden. 

Young, R.A. (1999). Health Risk Assessment for Lewisite. In Health Risk Assessments for Oral Exposure to Six Chemical-Warfare Agents. National Research Council. National Academy Press, Washington, DC. 

Research on anesthetic gases during the nineteenth century facilitated the development and use of poisonous war gases in the twentieth. This led to attempts to counteract the effects of chemical warfare agents and other toxic compounds, particularly arsenicals, introduced by Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915) for the treatment of syphilis. This resulted in the synthesis of the first specific chemical antidote, British anti-Lewisite (BAL), in 1945 by R.A. Peters, L.A. Stocken, and R.H.S. Thompson in Oxford. Studies on the mechanistic bases for toxicity were applied to the synthesis of effective insecticides. For example, during the 1940s, the Swiss chemist Paul Muller discovered a compound, now known as DDT, that poisons insects on contact. 

In 1994, a US Senate report, entitled "Is Military Research Hazardous to Veterans Health Lessons Spanning a Half Century," stated that US military personnel were used as human subjects in the 1940s to test two chemical agents, mustard gas and a similar com-poxmd. Lewisite. This testing was done to determine how to best protect military troops from the effects of chemical warfare agents (Pechura and Rail, 1993). 

F. H. Adler and I. H. Leopold, The toxicity of Lewisite for the eye, Facic-ulus on Chemical Warfare Medicine. Vol 1-The Eye, National Research Council., Washington DC, 1945, pp. 279-288. 

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