War gases

War gases Washcoats Washers Washing Washing fastness... 

The adventitious discovery of the antitumor action of the nitrogen mustard poison war gases led to intensive investigation of the mode of action of these compounds. In brief, it has been fairly well established that these agents owe their effect to the presence of the highly reactive bis(2-chloroethyl)amine group. The cytotoxic activity of... 

Sartori, Mario. The War Gases Chemistry and Analysis. Trans. L.W. Marrison. London J. and A. Churchill, Ltd., 1939. 

Sartori, Mario F. "New Developments in the Chemistry of War Gases." Chemical Reviews 48 (1951) 225-257. 

Silver II An electrolytic oxidation process for destroying traces of organic substances in water. The oxidizing agent is the silver ion in a nitric acid environment. Developed by AEA Technology, Oxford, and used for destroying war gases. 

Underhill, F.P. 1920. The lethal war gases. Physiology and experimental treatment. New Haven Yale University Press. 

The largest of the branch laboratories was established at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. Its staff of about 75 carried out research on arsenic compounds and subsequently developed one of the new war gases produced by the United States during World War I, Lewisite C26). 

Chloroacetophenone was among the many samples of possible war gases prepared by E. Emmet Reid and sent to the Bureau of Mines in 1917. Because there were no testing facilities for lachryma-tors until the central laboratory was completed, the value of this compound as a tear gas went unnoticed. It was January, 1918, before the results of the physiological tests were reported which showed chloroacetophenone to be superior to any other tear gas in use at the time (23). The Johns Hopkins University branch laboratory, in cooperation with a unit at American University then developed a method of synthesis. Although chloroacetophenone was not produced in quantity before the war ended, it became the standard tear gas used by civilian police after the war (38). 

Table 7-1 gives an overview of various irritant and nonirritant gases commonly found in the atmosphere, their solubility in water, and their main sites of action. The Henry s law constant indicates the relative solubility in waterlike lung fluid. Although most of the information goes back to 1924, it is supported and extended by numerous studies of the effects of war gases and industrial irritants. - " ... 

Metal dithiophosphate complexes can be considered to be derivatives of the parent esters. Since World War II there has been wide-spread usage of dithiophosphate esters, e.g., 2-4, as pesticides and also related development of such compounds as war gases im.ios) Dithiophosphate esters inhibit the action of several ester-splitting enzymes in living organisms. 

Irreversible cholinesterases are mostly organophosphorus compounds and combine only with esteratic site of cholinesterase and that site gets phosphorylated. The hydrolysis of phosphorylated site produces irreversible inhibition of cholinesterase. And, because, of this property, the therapeutic usefulness is very limited. Most of the compounds are used as insecticides e.g. parathion, malathion and war gases e.g. tabun, sarin, soman etc. 

G-Agent. Any of a group of war gase , known as nerve gases. This group is called G-Series (Ref 2)... 

This key enzyme of the nervous system is inactivated irreversibly by powerful phosphorus-containing poisons that had been developed as insecticides and as war gases (nerve gases, Box 12-C). Around 1949, the nerve gas diisopropylfluorophosphate (DFP) was shown also to inactivate chymotrypsin. When radioactive 32P-containing DFP was allowed to react the 32P became... 

According to Wachtel(Ref l,p 185), the org arsine compounds will possibly belong among the most efficient war gases in future wars. 

---