Quantity has a Quality of Its Own

The problems of gathering intelligence about the production and deployment of CBW agents and munitions are the same as those that have so far prevented the signing of a treaty banning chemical weapons. Non-intrusive techniques do not provide sufficient information for certainty. Reports by defectors and emigres may offer clues, but they are not necessarily reliable and in any case only the most 

Because most of the available material on the Soviet CBW capability comes from Western sources, and much of it was published in order to obtain Congressional support for funding for US CBW programmes, analysis of the material on the USSR has to involve some consideration of American political and military pressures. To some extent, a review of the Soviet capability thus entails a review of the source material, rather than the subject matter. 

There are believed to have been nearly half a million Russian gas casualties in the First World War. Of these more than a tenth - over 50 000 men - died. The first major gas cylinder attack on the Eastern front took place at Bolimow on 31 May 1915 when 12 000 cylinders containing some 264 tons of chlorine were discharged. Despite heavy losses, the Russian artillery continued to fire, and the German infantry did not follow the attack through. Nonetheless, here as in the West, gas had proved its effectiveness and continued to be used. The Russians for their part lacked the means to produce significant quantities of gas their protection and the gas discipline of their troops were poor. They suffered more gas casualties than all the other combatants together.  

The effectiveness of gas was clearly recognised by the Red Army from the first. Companies of chemical troops were formed under the 

As noted in chapter 3, the Soviet Union made considerable progress in upgrading its chemical warfare organisation and capability between the wars. It is reported that by 1928, 

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Since time immemorial, animal breeders have had to cross-foster motherless lambs or calves, or had to attach newborn mammals to a mother of a different species. They have been aware of odor barriers and developed methods to overcome them. A ewe will accept a non-related lamb if it has been rubbed with the hide or amniotic fluid of her own, perhaps stillborn, lamb. A classical case of successful cross-fostering between species is a technique employed by Peruvian livestock breeders to produce hybrids between alpacas and vicunas. The cross is called paco-vicuM and combines the large quantity of wool of the alpaca with the fine quality of vicufia hair. To breed an alpaca female with a vicufia male, first a male has to be imprinted on alpacas. A newborn male vicuna is covered with the hide of a newborn alpaca and presented to a lactating female alpaca without young. The young vicuna is accepted and nursed on account of his alpaca odor. Successfully raised by his alpaca mother, he will imprint on, and breed with, alpacas when adult. 

L-Ascorbic acid is now produced in thousands of tonnes every year. It is used very extensively in the food industry and has its own E number (E300). Many foods have it added simply as a vitamin supplement, e.g. in fruit juices. In bread making it forms part of the baking process and is used as an antioxidant in a wide variety of foods. It is sold as an over-the-counter medicine in the form of pills and as a component of various multivitamin tablets indeed in shops in California it may be bought in 1 kg containers in powder form. It is clear, therefore, that as part of the quality control and assurance procedures it is necessary to have reliable and accurate analytical procedures. Much remains to be discovered about the role of vitamin C in living systems and as part of such studies analysis of very small quantities of the vitamin in many different matrices derived from both plants and animals will be required. 

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