The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean provides a flashback to when humans first began using chemical warfare. The use of chemical warfare can be traced back to Ancient Greece. Kean talks about the Spartan’s attempts at surprising the Athenians with a stink bomb. Though it had failed, it marked the start of chemical warfare. Twenty-four hundred years later, chemical warfare still has little strategic value until World War I. In chapter five, Kean discusses how chlorine and bromine were first experimented during World War I. The French first practiced with bromine which proved to be ineffective when the shells had no immediate effect on the German troops. Soon after the attempt, a famous Jewish-German scientist named Fritz Haber emerged with big contributions to German warfare. He began a process to “capture” nitrogen and created an efficient killing explosive. It also pioneered future fertilizers. Afterwards, Haber redirected his efforts to chlorine. Chlorine proved to be the first successful gas attack when it left French troops scarred for life. The effects of chlorine turned victims’ skin to different shades of colour and the fluid inside one’s lungs would build up. Haber became one of the greatest minds in chemistry. A few years after WWI, Haber was convicted for prosecuting thousands with his chemical warfare innovations. When …show more content…
The strategies exemplifies the “big picture” that though the elements can be wonderful, it can also be destructive. He brings in true stories and facts relating to the subject matter. The stories can invoke emotion and help us connect to the book. For pathos, Kean tells us about Haber’s wife, Clara Immerwahr, and her “refusal to help on the bromine gas work” (84). She was horrified by the deaths and did not support Haber in his input in the war. This invokes sympathy and sorrow for the ones that stood against violence and the innocents that
During this time, the chlorine gas hit them, but unlike the French, they did
He uses people’s personal stories and moral choices as a lens to tell the story of World War II. From these stories, he draws common themes and traces their impact on the war, and the impact on society postwar. On page 13 he talks about using two different hats in which to use in our historical observance while reading his book. The first is, “the stance of celebration: the imperative one feels to recapture vividly the drama, sacrifice, and extraordinary achievement that culminated in allied victory.” This stance is how we tend to usually view the war.
British, French, and Canadian troops prepared themselves for what they expected to be a normal battle. Little did they know the Germans had something far more deadly up their sleeve that changed the view of World War 1. As the troops were surprised by this new weapon of gas being used, many of the British and French troops began to retreat. In all the chaos, there was one nation's troop that stayed till the end to fight the battle and close the gap, and that was the Canadians. They used the tactic of urinating on a cloth and covering their mouths and noses to prevent inhaling the gas.
The Chemist 's War by Deborah Blum Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Deborah Blum follows New York City 's first forensic scientists to discover a fascinating Jazz Age story of chemistry and detection, poison and murder. Deborah Blum, writing with the high style and skill for suspense that is characteristic of the very best mystery fiction, shares the untold story of how poison rocked Jazz Age New York City. In the Poisoner 's Handbook Blum draws from highly original research to track the fascinating, perilous days when a pair of forensic scientists began their trailblazing chemical detective work, fighting to end an era when untraceable poisons offered an easy path to the perfect
In World War II the technological advancements in weapons have affected wars today. “American mustard gas experiments took place within a transnational program of Allied government human experimentation. During World War II, Britain, Australia, Canada, and the United States conducted mustard gas experiments on their own soldiers in order to prepare for the possibility of chemical warfare. Indeed, mustard gas exposure caused a wide range of pain and humiliation for the soldiers in these tests, and for some young men, the experiments were a form of torture. Some soldiers experienced immediate and severe eye injuries and damage to lungs.
Never before had a war lasted so long or with such a terrible and destructive death toll. It brought in the new century with an unconscious amount of violence, death, and gore. In Erich Maria Remarque 's war novel "All Quiet on the Western Front," a young man by the name of Paul Baumer remembers and retells his personal story as a German soldier in World War I. Although his accounts are based on a fabricated idea they are based on an actuality that many men had to genuinely endure during their fight front experiences in World War I. There are a large number of themes and ideas in this novel that range from the overall depiction of World War I to the personal struggle of a soldier in comparison to what the people from back home believes what is happening during the war.
The gas could either be shot out of a gun or dropped out of a plane. It would be used mostly when there was no fighting going on. If the soldiers failed to put on their masks, the soldiers who breathed in the gas could easily die in an instant or become very ill and eventually die. People may have died fast because the gas contained Chlorine and Phosgene and (Mustard
Strides made in technological and biological fields have been used in warfare to devastating effect. Drones now make it possible to kill at will, while chemical and biological weapons make that killing not only more efficient, but also more terrifying. These modern warfare techniques would not be possible without an advancement of knowledge. However, one is faced with the “chicken and the egg” argument when faced with these facts. Many times such advances only happen because of warfare.
He injected chloroform into the hearts of twins to see if they would die at the same time and way. On dwarfs serological research, and skeletal examination. In effort to study eye color he injected a serum into the eyeballs of children casing extreme pain. They were castrated frozen to death or exposed to other traumas. Another experiment would put them in pressure chambers test with drugs.
after the chinese found out that gunpowder exploded they used it in a lot of fireworks until a couple hundred years later when they started using it in war. gunpowder changed war in many different ways. first of all it could be used in cannons to shoot cannonballs at the ground and make holes in the ground in these holes you could hide or use them to store things like other weapons. the smaller holes were also dangerous because people could trip over them and possibly get shot. gunpowder wasn’t just used in war people used gunpowder to mine too.
Chapters 28-35 embody the overlying satirical theme of Catch-22. These chapters accurately reflect the circular nature of the plot and how Catch-22 was designed to ensure all the soldiers remained on duty. The result of their so called captivity, concealed by the stereotypical beliefs of military bureaucrats such as Colonel Cathcart, is a life being lived without any meaningful purpose or moral objective. Yossarian is a prime example of this, serving as the lovable protagonist of the novel, and having the plot revolve mainly around him. He is characterized as a womanizer early on in the novel, and focuses on surviving the horrors of warfare.
Sly Chavey Mrs. Wunderle Inventor Research 27 Feb. 2018 The Gas Mask On July 24, 1916, a man struck a pocket of natural gas with a pickaxe in a tunnel and ignited it. The noxious fumes were flowing through the tunnel and choking the miners.
An act of attacking with a Chemicl agent is typically from an aerosal type or disseminating the agent into other avenues of contact. However, for this particular scenario, a Chemical-Biological Agent will be used in the rare form of being part of an explosive. The particular chemical agent in reference will be petroleum-contaminated water.
Even though widely used, flamethrowers were still ineffective, being extremely cumbersome (soldiers had to carry both a petroleum tank and a gas-filled tank, both highly flammable and vulnerable to enemy fire) and unable to create a fire that burned for any prolonged period of time. To prolong the lifetime of the fire created, U.S. scientists started developing (in secret) a new kind of flammable weapon during WWII. By mixing petroleum with latex, they managed to create a jelly-like substance, which was the first attempt at creating what would be later known as napalm. Due to the Japanese campaign on Southeast Asia (where most of the latex-producing trees were located) a new way of producing napalm had to be
Chelation therapy is used by a wide range of people to help remove heavy metal toxins and also some places have used this therapy for autism treatments. It is a chemical process where a synthetic solution called ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) is injected into the bloodstream to remove heavy metals/ minerals from the body. They believe that using this therapy for autism is helpful because proponents believed that autism was caused by mercury exposure that were in childhood vaccinations and chelation therapy is said to be able to remove the mercury from the body, however they have not found a connection between mercury exposure and autism and they have also found that there are too many high risks treating autism with chelation therapy. Chelation is originally from the Greek root word “chele,” which means “claw”. In the early 1900’s, chelation agencies at first designed was for industrial applications; it wasn’t until World War II that the potential for medical therapy was recognized.