Nature chemical warfare

In this introductory chapter, a broad overview is given of the history of chemical warfare on earth, and the compounds, species, and mechanisms involved. The impact of human-made compounds on the environment, which is the subject of this book, is an extremely recent event in evolutionary terms. It is important to take a holistic view, and to see the effects of human-made pollutants on the environment against the background of chemical warfare in nature. 

As explained in Chapter 1, the toxicity of natural xenobiotics has exerted a selection pressure upon living organisms since very early in evolutionary history. There is abundant evidence of compounds produced by plants and animals that are toxic to species other than their own and which are nsed as chemical warfare agents (Chapter 1). Also, as we have seen, wild animals can develop resistance mechanisms to the toxic componnds prodnced by plants. In Anstralia, for example, some marsupials have developed resistance to natnrally occnrring toxins produced by the plants upon which they feed (see Chapter 1, Section 1.2.2). 

Trapp, R. The Detoxification and Natural Degradation of Chemical Warfare Agents. Volume 3 of SIPRI Chemical Biological Warfare Studies. London Taylor Francis, 1985. 

This chapter will examine the nature of project-research as it developed in the organization of chemical warfare research during World War I and will suggest that this model may have played a significant role in the attempts at increased organization of chemical research in the United States after the war, especially in the division of chemistry and chemical technology of the National Research Council. 

Another NIMH scientist went out on a limb, saying that it was incredible that marijuana in any natural or synthetic form could serve as a chemical warfare agent. THC itself, he said, deteriorates rapidly and is too bulky and expensive for such use. LSD is cheaper, more stable, and packs a bigger punch in a smaller dose. He added that one could readily introduce an easily carried quantity of LSD into the food or water supply of a major city, enough to alter radically the sense perceptions of its population for 12 to 24 hours. 

From H.-A. Lakso and W. F. Ng, Determination of Chemical Warfare Agents In Natural Water Samples by Solid-Phase Microextraction, Anal. Chem. 1997,69, 1866.]... 

Addnl Refs 1) M.F. Smith, Hazardous Materials Transportation. Part I. General Studies (A Bibliography with Abstracts) , NTIS, Spring-field (1976), (NTIS/PS-76/0331/9WK). [The transportation of expls, rocket propints, chemical warfare agents, industrial chemicals, liquefied natural gas, chlorine, and other hazardous materials are covered. All means of transportation are described] 2) L.W. Bierlein, Red Book on Transportation of Hazardous Materials , UNZ Co, 190 Baldwin Ave, Jersey City, NJ 07036(1977), 65... 

So, although calls were made to prohibit the use of chemical warfare at the end of the First World War, it is clear that the major countries continued to support investigations connected with this form of warfare. At this time many of the problems raised during the war needed to be studied in an organised scientific manner, since most of the previous effort had, by necessity, been of an empirical nature. 

The purpose of this book is to contribute to informed debate by providing an analysis of the development and deployment of chemical weapons from 700 bc to the present day. In Chapter 1 the groundwork for this, which follows a brief appraisal of historical prededents, is laid in a discussion of chemical warfare during the First World War, from which certain aspects are taken up and their development over subsequent years described. Chapter 2 examines the First World War in detail since it remains the most significant experience of the chemical threat. It contains some technical descriptions and a number of wider themes that have present-day relevance. One such theme is the nature of the whole... 

H.-A.A. Lakso and W.F. Ng, Determination of chemical warfare agents in natural water samples by solid-phase microextraction, Anal. Chem., 69, 1866-1872 (1997). 

---