The Democratic banner. (Mt. Vernon, Ohio) 1898-192?, 1915-06-08
STINK POT
Is Not A New Thing In
Warfare
Asphyxiating Gases Used
Thousands Of Years Ago
Detroit Free Press

stink pot" from time immemorial, and
the polecat used it for many thousands
of years before the Chinese did.
The employment of a poisonous gas
like chlorine, such as has been attrib-
uted to the Germans, is quite differ
ent thing from the employment of
merely ill-smelling odors, for chlorine
is one of the most vrulent of irritant
poisons, and any living thing dies i'm
mediately when placed in an atmos.
phere of it.
1t is reported that the Germans car
ry the chlorine to the front in steel
cylinders, in a condensed or liquid
state, and set it free in front of their
ranks or trenches when the wind is in
a favorable direction-that is to say,
when the wind is blowing from them
and toward the enemy.
Chlorine Is about two and half
times as heavy as air, so that it is
blown along the surface of the ground
by favorable wind, and when used in
large quantities it is very effective at
short range; but it can be used only
with favorable wind and over COM
paratively level ground, with few OBJ
structions, and even under the most
favorable circumstances can be car
red to but very short distance in
sufficient state of concentration to be
effective.
| Although chlorine is much heavier
than air, II has strong affinity for the
atmosphere, and is very rapidly alb
sOrbed by it. Over an uneven ground
which sets up innumerable vortices
and whorls in the atmosphere, the
chlorine is very rapidly mixed with
the air and rendered inert.
BY far the best and most effective
way to use liquid chlorine, or any as
phyxiating or poisonous gas, would be
to throw it in projectiles upon the
| ranks or trenches of an enemy, with
ust enough explosive charge to burst
the container.
1t may be urged that the use of as
phyxiating or poisonous gases in
bombs or projectiles is contrary to in
ternational law and the usages of war
This may be true, still, none of the
beligerents of the present war has
been very greatly hampered by prev
ious usage or numbered by information
| 4 /. II
more unethical in the use of an as
phyxiating gas in bombs or projectiles
than in employing it as it is claimed
that the Germans have employed it.
There are many substances which
may be employed to poison or asphyx.
late an enemy, either by tempering
the wind or by use in projectiles
Hydrocyanic acid, known as prussic
acid. is so poisonous that mere
breath of it means instant death. Sui.
phuricanhydrid, when brought in con.
tact with the air, combines rapidly
with moisture absorbed from the air,
producing sulphuric acid. Thrown in
bomb, with just explosive charge
enough to disrupt the bomb and scat
ter the sulphuric anhydrid the air for
large space about the explosion
would he at once converted into a
dense fog of sulphuric acid.
Liquid ammonia similarly employed
would instantly SO impregnate the at
mosphere with ammonia as to stran
gle all persons in the immediate vicin
ty Ammonia is absolutely irrespir
able.
In the present great European con
flict the rules or laws of war have
been generally ignored, Before the
present war broke out we were assur
ed by the pacitists not only that there
would not be any more great wars. but
so much In recent years and brotherly
love had become such a potentialit,
that men would no longer have the
heart to kin one another, and that. ev
en- should war come, it would be {
most merciful and unsellsh war.
But the present war has not beer
marked for mercifulness and unself
ishness Things have been done o
such brutality as to shock the shad,
of old Attila, and make the fossil par
of him turn in his grave.
The lesson to us Americans is to b,
SO prepared against the dread eventu
ally of war as to preclude the possibili
ty of its coming, by making the neces
sity of keeping peace with Uncle San
the supreme necessity OF any othe
nation.
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J. NJ. and Il. NJ. Kunkle, Democracy