Protective Ointment Kit

An improved version of the World War I orchard sprayer decontamination apparatus was fielded to provide ground and equipment decontamination. It could also be used for plain water showers for soldiers (Figure 2-39). For treatment of gas casualties, the CWS standardized the M5 Protective Ointment Kit. This kit came in a small, waterproof container and held four tubes of M5 Protective Ointment wrapped in cheesecloth and a tube of BAL (British anti-Lewisite) Eye Ointment. The protective ointment was used to liberate chlorine to neutralize vesicant agents on the skin. The BAL ointment neutralized Lewisite in and around the eye by changing it to a nontoxic compound. Over 25 million of the kits were procured for the army.26 35 105 Biological Warfare Program... 

Shortly after the appearance of the gas casualty chest in 1S>42, a small gas casualty first-aid kit, evolved from the earlier plant kit, was standardized and issued on the basis of one to each twenty-five individuals and as an accessory of vehicular equipment. Its contents, based on developments reported in TM 8-285, were dichloramine-T in triacetin, hydrogen peroxide solution, copper sulfate solution. Ml eye solution, amyl nitrite, pontacaine ointment, and M4 protective ointment. Three years later, in 1945, this same first-aid kit contained BAL ointment, chloroform, amyl nitrite, copper sulfate, eye and nose drops, calamine lotion, and the M5 protective ointment kit, the latter consisting of four tubes of M5 protective ointment and one tube of BAL eye ointment. Over 250,000 of these kits were procured for shipment overseas. 

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