T H E JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
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Vol. 14, No. 7
that the activating wave lengths are or are not those which are adsorbed by methyl iodide. A third line of attack is through contact catalysis as indicated in this report. It was originally planned to postpone the discussion of the general problem until the second report of the
Committee; but the problem as a whole is so much larger than the contact catalysis part t h a t it seems wiser for the Committee on Contact Catalysis to stick to its own job and to turn the larger problem over to a committee to be selected with special reference to the work to be done.
Early References Pertaining to Chemical Warfare’
in time chemistry will be used to lessen the sufferings of combatants, and even of criminals condemned to death. Hanging i s a relic of barbarism, because criminals might be put to death without physical torture.
By C. A. Browne SO SOUTHST.,NEWYORK, N. Y .
A
MONG recent discussions in European chemical journals a t the present time is a dispute as to whether the proposition to use poison gases as a weapon of attack originated with civilians or with the military authorities. According to a statement by Professor Haber, no one in the German army either previous to the recent war or during the first months of theconflict hadconceived the idea of using poison gas or had made experiments for such a purpose. This statement, which Sir Edward Thorpe accepts as true in a recent issue of the Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry,2 would seem to give the credit or blame for the idea to persons not in the military service. If this view is correct it simply repeats what has taken place in the history of chemical warfare from the time of the invention of Greek fire down to the present day. A few references in confirmation of this will be cited. The first reference is from Wemyss Reid’s “Memoirs and Correspondence of Lyon Playfair.”3 Lord Playfair, who studied under Liebig a t Giessen, writes thus in connection with his work of organizing the Department of Science a t the Royal College:
It was fortunate t h a t the Department of Science and Art was founded in 1853, because the Crimean War broke out in the following year and heavily taxed the country. At the beginning of the war I wrote a letter to the Prince Consort which he forwarded to the Master of the Ordnance, suggesting one or two applications of science to the purposes of war, One was a hollow, brittle shell containing phosphorus dissolved in bisulphide of carbon for the purpose of producing conflagration of the enemy’s stores or property. The shell contained antimony, so as to make it break on a hard surface. It then scattered the liquid over the objects to be burned, and each drop, on drying, started a new center of conflagration. As the fumes of phosphorus are apt t o put out their own flame, a little beeswax or petroleum was added to prevent this. The Ordnance Department reported against this proposal, and I did not care to push it further; but ten years later the plan with exactly the same materials was adopted, and the inventor, who was an officer, received promotion, and I think a decoration. The Fenians have lately used this method of setting property on fire, and tried its effect on one of the Cunard ships. The other proposal in my letter was to have a hollow, brittle shell containing cyanide of cacodyl. This is an intensely poisonous substance, a few drops of which in a room would poison the occupants. Such a shell going between decks of a ship would render the atmosphere irrespirable, and poison the men if they remained a t the guns. This suggestion was considered inadmissible by the military authorities, who stated that it would be as bad a mode of warfare as poisoning the wells of the enemy. There was no sense in this objection. It is considered a legitimate mode of warfare to fill shells with molten metal which scatters among the enemy, and produces the most frightful modes of death. Why a poisonous vapor which would kill men without suffering is to be considered illegitimate warfare is incomprehensible. War is destruction, and the more destructive it can be made with the least suffering the sooner will be ended that barbarous method of protecting national rights. No doubt 1 Read b y title before t h e Section of History of Chemistry at t h e 63rd Meeting of t h e American Chemical Society, Birmingham, Ala., April 3 t o 7, 1922. 2 J . SOC. Chem. Ind., 41 (1922), 43r. 8 Harper and Bros., New York, 1899, 159.
An earlier reference to the use of phosphorus in incendiary bombs, than that proposed by Playfair, is contained in the unpublished reminiscences of Benjamin Silliman, Sr., preserved in the library of Yale University. Silliman worked in 1806 in the laboratory of Frederick Accum in London and in his reminiscences of this celebrated chemist narrates the following: Accum assured me that he had been employed by the government to contrive some infernal machination with which to blow up and burn the French Flotilla then assembled a t Bologne for the invasion of England. He accordingly arranged phosphorus and chlorate of potassa in contiguous divisions of tin. canisters. These were to be projected upon the flotilla and the contrivance was such as to mingle, in the act of discharge, these most explosive materials which if once in contact with the ships would destroy them by explosion and by a fearful combustion which nothing but submersion could extinguish. Happily the project failed-the canisters exploded in the air short of their object and as the flotilla never left the harbor all was well in the end-while Trafalgar dissipated the dream of French invasion. Those who have read Lippmann’s‘ “Essay upon the History of Gunpowder” or Hime’s book upon this subject will recall that the introduction of gunpowder to European nations was due largely to Roger Bacon, who was a friar, and to Albertus Magnus, who was a bishop. Bacon spoke of it as composed of “salis petrae, lura nope cum urbe et sulphuris,” the words lura nope c u m urbe being the anagram for carbonum pulvere or powdered charcoal. It is strange t h a t Bacon should have used an anagram t o conceal the most common of the ingredients. Gunpowder was known to the Arabs and Byzantine Greeks who used it for rockets, fire balls, and pyrotechnics, but not for loading firearms. Its use for the latter purpose was the discovery of Berthold Schwarz, a German monk, shortly before the year 1300. The flame projectors used in the recent war do not seem to have created half the terrifying effect produced by the dragon-mouthed siphons which ejected the liquid fire invented by the old Greek architect Callinicus in 678 A. D. The composition of this Greek fire was a secret jealously guarded by the Emperors of Constantinople for many centuries, but it is now supposed to have contained naphtha and quicklime as its principle ingredients, with a certain amount of sulfur and pitch. This mixture, it is stated, when wet with water evolves so much heat from the action of the lime that the naphtha and other ingredients are ignited. It is thus seen that what a Greek architect and several monks in the middle ages accomplished in the way of contributions t o warfare has been continued in more recent times by the chemists. The arts of piety and peace have thus helped to increase as well as to mollify the horrors of war. Generals, grand marshals and the military class, as a whole, have contributed little or nothing in the way 01great discoveries or inventions in warfare. I n the cases where they do claim credit for such a discovery it usually turns out, as in the incident cited by the chemist Playfair, where an officer was decorated and promoted for a proposal which Playfair himself had made ten years before. Thus again is verified the old saying that the professional militarist is not only the most brutal but the most stupid of mankind! 4
“Abhandlungen u n d Vortrage,” 1906, Vol. 1, 126.
