Cassi Creek:
Why is it worse to be gassed than to be shot?
American
Public Health Association
“Chemical Warfare and Medical Response During World
War I
Gerard J. Fitzgerald, PhD
Abstract
The first large-scale use of a traditional weapon of mass
destruction (chemical, biological, or nuclear) involved the successful
deployment of chemical weapons during World War I (1914–1918). Historians now
refer to the Great War as the chemist’s war because of the scientific and
engineering mobilization efforts by the major belligerents. The development,
production, and deployment of war gases such as chlorine, phosgene, and mustard
created a new and complex public health threat that endangered not only soldiers
and civilians on the battlefield but also chemical workers on the home front
involved in the large-scale manufacturing processes. The story of chemical
weapons research and development during that war provides useful insights for
current public health practitioners faced with a possible chemical weapons
attack against civilian or military populations.
IN THE LATE AFTERNOON OF April 22, 1915, members of a special unit of the German Army
opened the valves on more than 6000 steel cylinders arrayed in trenches along
their defensive perimeter at Ypres, Belgium. Within 10 minutes, 160 tons of
chlorine gas drifted over the opposing French trenches, engulfing all those
downwind. Filled with pressurized liquid chlorine, the cylinders had been
clandestinely installed by the Germans more than 3 weeks earlier. The order to
release the gas was entrusted to German military meteorologists, who had
carefully studied the area’s prevailing wind patterns. Disregarding
intelligence reports about the strange cylinders prior to the attack, the
French troops were totally unprepared for this new and horrifying weapon.1”
“Nerve agents are substances that disrupt
the chemical communications through the nervous system. The disruption is
caused by blocking the acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme that normally destroys and stops the
activity of acetylcholine,
a neurotransmitter.
Poisoning by a nerve agent leads to an accumulation of acetylcholine at the
nerve axon, producing a perpetual excited state (e.g., muscle contraction). The
eventual exhaustion of muscles leads to respiratory failure and death.
G series
These are low volatility nerve agents that
are typically used for a nonpersistent to semipersistent effect.
These agents have a volatility between the
V and G agents and are typically used for a semi-persistent to persistent
effect.
These agents have low volatility and are
typically used for a persistent effect or liquid contact hazard.
WWI took early-industrialized warfare and changed it into
slaughter on an assembly line basis. It
also applied a target status upon civilian populations, pointing the way to
WWII. From the onset of WWI, the rules
and customs of warfare changed. Troops
came to be pitted against ever-larger artillery shells. Horse cavalry and animal-towed guns were
replaced by tanks and truck towed guns.
Much of a European generation, as well as one of Great Britain, simply
ceased to exist.
There is a
long history of individual combats in the lead up to what we declare modern
warfare. A sees B and they attack each
other. When organized armies and navies
were developed, individual battles still took place as the combatants were
directed by officers and/or rulers against their opponents. The patterns of warfare were largely
unchanged until the American Civil War put an end to massed fire and maneuver
using single-shot rifles.
Still, in the
mud, shells, and wire that helped define the trench warfare of WWI it was still
possible to see the continuation of A and B trying to spot and kill each
other. Soldiers were still doing what
soldiers have always done.
Gas changed
pattern. Gas was silent. Gas could be deployed in the dark, with the
right wind pattern, to spread over the trenches occupied by the other side. In daylight, it required the at-risk army to
spend time putting on protective equipment that might or might not work. Gas
arrived silently but killed noisily. Gas
was, and is, poison.
Thousands of
gas casualties survived WWI but had permanently scarred lungs, were badly blistered,
and were blinded.
In the post
war period, the Geneva Conventions declared gas warfare to be illegal and
unethical to use in warfare.
Nerve agents,
like earlier gas weaponry, originated in Germany. It saw little use in the battles of WWII but
heavy use in the death camps that carried out the Holocaust.
During the
Cold War, there was heavy investigation of nerve agents and stockpiling of such
agents by both the US and USSR. Every
modern nation is supposed to have destroyed their nerve agents. Obviously, the Middle Eastern states have not
done so.
The horror of
nerve agents includes the mechanism they use to kill.
“How sarin works
·
The extent of poisoning caused by sarin depends
on the amount of sarin to which a person was exposed, how the person was
exposed, and the length of time of the exposure.
·
Symptoms likely will appear within a few seconds
after exposure to the vapor form of sarin and within a few minutes to hours
after exposure to the liquid form.
·
All nerve agents cause their toxic effects by
preventing the proper operation of an enzyme that acts as the body’s “off
switch” for glands and muscles. Without an “off switch,” the glands and muscles
are constantly being stimulated. Exposed people may become tired and no longer
be able to keep breathing.
·
Sarin is the most volatile of the nerve agents.
This means it can easily and quickly evaporate from a liquid into a vapor and
spread into the environment. People can be exposed to the vapor even if they do
not come in contact with the liquid form of sarin.
·
Because it evaporates so quickly, sarin presents
an immediate but short-lived threat.
Immediate signs and symptoms of sarin exposure
·
People may not know that they were exposed
because sarin has no odor.
·
People exposed to a low or moderate dose of
sarin by breathing contaminated air, eating contaminated food, drinking
contaminated water, or touching contaminated surfaces may experience some or
all of the following symptoms within seconds to hours of exposure:
o Runny
nose
o Watery
eyes
o Small,
pinpoint pupils
o Eye
pain
o Blurred
vision
o Drooling
and excessive sweating
o Cough
o Chest
tightness
o Rapid
breathing
o Diarrhea
o Nausea,
vomiting, and/or abdominal pain
o Increased
urination
o Confusion
o Drowsiness
o Weakness
o Headache
o Slow
or fast heart rate
o Low
or high blood pressure
·
Even a small drop of sarin on the skin can cause
sweating and muscle twitching where sarin touched the skin.
·
Exposure to large doses of sarin by any route
may result in the following harmful health effects:
o Loss
of consciousness
o Convulsions
o Paralysis
o Respiratory
failure possibly leading to death
·
Showing these signs and symptoms does not
necessarily mean that a person has been exposed to sarin.”
The
decision to deploy nerve agents is considered to be beyond the Pale. While protective equipment is available to
soldiers, very few civilians have protective gear and almost none have atropine
to use as an antidote.
In the end, it matters little to the
dead, once they are dead, whether a single bullet or a Sarin bomblet brought
them down. But the experience of
watching nerve gases work, knowing that in most cases the end result is a most
undignified death should prevent any rational being from deploying any of the
nerve agents. The Assad regime has
chosen wholesale slaughter to be visited upon non-combatants. There is no place
in the modern world for such people.
They are not soldiers, they are not human.
