Sam Rubens Contribution to Chemical Warfare Research

I received a letter from Department Chairman Joel Hildebrand in Berkeley inviting me to join the faculty of the Department of Chemistry. The Salary would be 2,000.00 per annum. That was nearly 167 dollars a month It was a stellar opportunity... Linus Pauling and Wendell Latimer, 

Andy discussed the working hypothesis for the anomalous toxicity of phosgene and helped to carry out the experiments  

Phosgene, a doubly noxious carbonic acid chloride (Cl-CO-Cl), could react with two proteins, I reasoned, and the novel cross-linked or double protein could elicit an immune response in the limg and consequent accumulation of fluid. So I proceeded, with Sam s encouragement, to syntliesize phosgene from the carbon eleven ( C02) produced by Martin Kamen in the 27.5 inch (70 cm) cyclotron near the Rat House, where I and Sam and Bill Libby had our laboratories. Mine, of course, amounted to less than eight feet [2.4 m] of bench in my office, which I had inherited from Henry Taube. Reduction of carbon dioxide over hot zinc powder was easy and quick. Then, addition of chlorine yielded the phosgene, all in about twenty minutes. We administered this to a poor rat and began to determine if the radioactivity was protein-bound as I expected. 

Kenneth Pitzer received his Ph.D. at Caltech, was appointed as Instructor at Berkeley in 1935, and, over time, was promoted to become Professor, third Dean of the College of Chemistry, President of Rice University, and President of Stanford University. In a letter to me, Pitzer explained the history of the Rat House and how it came to be named  

When I first came to Berkeley in 1935, chemistry had re-occupied the building. Sam Ruben and Bill Libby had space there and probably some others. 

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