World War mustard gas

Participation of sulfides through three-membered rings was used to gruesome effect in the development of mustard gas during the Second World War. Mustard gas itseff owes its toxicity to the neighbouring group participation of sulfur, which accelerates its mustard gas... 

During the First World War, mustard gas was developed as a chemical weapon—it causes the skin to blister and is an intense irritant of the respiratory tract. Its reactivity towards human tissue is related to the following observation and is gruesome testimony to the powerful electrophilic properties of sulfonium ions. 

The modem history of the military use of toxic chemical agents (1,3—5) dates from the first full-scale (chlorine) gas attack on April 22, 1915, near Ypres, Belgium in World War I. There were a few reports of the limited use of toxic chemicals since that time. The Italians employed mustard, a bUster agent, during the Ethiopian war in 1935 and 1936 the Japanese used toxic chemicals in a number of small-scale engagements in the early years of their war with China and Iraq purportedly employed both mustard and nerve gases in the 1980s. 

Mustard gas, used in chemical warfare in World War I, has been found to be an effective agent in the chemotherapy of Hodgkins disease. It can be produced according to the following reaction ... 

The interplay between the chemical and biological properties of the threat agent, on the one hand, and the specific attack scenario, on the other, can influence the lethality of the attack. Table 2-2 shows the relative respiratory toxicities (expressed as the lethal concentration of toxin at which 50 percent of test animals are killed, or LCT50, in milligrams per minute per cubic meter) of a variety of toxic gases compared with chlorine gas, which was used as a chemical weapon in World War I. According to Table 2-2, the nerve agent sarin (GB) has a respiratory toxicity approximately 100 times that of chlorine, while sulfur mustard (HD) is about 7 times more toxic. However, the lethality of an attack... 

Another time a friend insisted I go to an appointment she d made for me to see some kind of healer. Not knowing what I was getting into, I went and told the woman what had happened to me. What she told me was the most absurd thing I d ever heard in my life. She said, It s obvious that what has happened to you is that your exposure to the poison paint triggered memories of your most recent life when you were poisoned by mustard gas in World War I in the trenches of France. ... 

But if we accept that plutonium is chemically toxic, then we must also recognize that the extent of its toxicity will depend on how the plutonium is bonded chemically, i.e. in what redox and chemical form it is present. As an example, note how soldiers were poisoned with chlorine gas during the First World War (when it was called Mustard Gas), but chloride in table salt is vital for life. Some plutonium compounds are more toxic than others. 

Muslim (also Moslem)—Followers of the teachings of Muhammad, or Islam, mustard gas—A blistering agent that causes severe damage to the eyes, internal organs, and respiratory system. Produced for the first time in 1822, mustard gas was not used until World War I. Victims suffered the effects of mustard gas thirty to forty years after exposure. 

During World War I, Haber helped to develop the technology for deploying phosgene, chlorine, and mustard gas as weapons of chemical warfare. His wife Clara, also a chemist, was disgusted by the use of science in war. When her husband refused to stop his support of the war effort, she committed suicide. 

Beebe GW Lung cancer mortality in World War I veterans possible relation to mustard gas injury and 1918 influenza epidemic. 

With supreme irony, the beginnings of modern cancer chemotherapy had an origin in chemical warfare [7,8j. Autopsy findings from the lymphatic glands of soldiers killed in the First World War by exposure to sulphur mustard gas... 

The discovery of penicillin and its successful application in World War II inspired the antibiotic era, and a broad search for other cures for infectious diseases. Cancer has a totally different cause, as it arises through the malignant mutation of normal cells instead of from the actions of bacterial or other outside organisms. Penicillin destroys the bacteria cell walls, but not the mammalian cell membranes. Unless a dmg could be found that could tell the difference between a normal cell and a cancer cell, then it was not clear that there would be an effective cancer drug, that is until the first report by Goodman in 1946 that nitrogen mustard, developed as a war gas, was an effective chemotherapeutic for human leukemia. 

The nitrogen mustard analogues are nitrogen derivatives of sulfur mustard, used as poison gas in World War I. Agents include cyclophosphamide, mechlorethamine, chlorambucil, melphalan, ifos-famide, uramustine and estramustine. 

For military use, harassing agents are intended to reduce or destroy the effectiveness of enemy troops. For this purpose, rapid onset of effects is usually, but not always, desired. Rapid recovery facilitates the handling of prisoners, whereas men injured by mustard gas require intensive care and weeks for recovery. There were no plans for studying long-term effects of World War I harassing agents. 

At the end of World War I, medical thought was turning to the possibility that soldiers who had been gassed with mustard, chlorine, phosgene, and other agents would develop tuberculosis. In the early postwar years, publications described efforts to identify cases of tuberculosis among gas casualties. The expected epidemic failed to appear, and attention subsided. More extensive studies, such as that of Beebe, were initiated.1 Gradually, mustard gas became the... 

Because information on possible long-term effects of the other irritant chemicals used in the Edgewood tests is sparse, this chapter focuses on the effects of mustard gas and two lacrimators, CS and CN. Information on the potential long-term adverse effects of these chemicals is derived from several sources first, observation of long-term disabilities in soldiers who were exposed to a single (in most cases) toxic concentration of irritant during World War I and in persons exposed in peacetime accidents or riot-control procedures second, studies of morbidity in workers chronically exposed to chemical irritants during their manufacture and third, studies in which experimental laboratory animals were exposed to selected chemicals by topical application, injection, or aerosol inhalation. 

Jackson and Adams studied 33 cases of extensive basal cell carcinoma, two of which involved mustard-gas burns sustained during World War I. One of those developed 35 yr after the burn, but 2 yr after irradiation with cobalt-60. In the other, basal cell carcinoma developed at the site of three separate burns, 3 yr after exposure. Some of the mustard burns did not lead to basal cell cancer. 

---