The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1948-11-12

An intense search for more electric cells
was launched and extended throughout South
America 1t was known that they existed in
quantities in remote regions of Brazil, so a
us. Army expedition hacked its way to the
upper regions of the Amazon, trapped and
shipped 118 of them by military plane to the
Manhattan laboratory
These immigrants from Brazil helped Mach
mansohn to establish once and for all the
devastating effectiveness of DIP. He found
that previous experiments yielded negative
results simply because they were poorly con-
Quoted: nerve tissues were exposed to DIP
for too short time to permit the gas to have
it's lethal effect. Despite the fact that the
total quantity of cholne esterase in the hui
man body is absolutely infinitesmal it is still
three to four times in excess of what the
nerves need in order to function The new
gas begins its destructive effectiveness at
once, but it is lethal only when it reduces
choline esterase beyond the essential mini
mum needed by the body. Even when 80
per cent of the compound was destroyed,
DIP failed to kill nervous action, but it
wrought havoc with it in the meantime. But
when more than so per cent of choline
esterase was destroyed, nervous actions
ceased simultaneously and its Inhibition" be-
came irreversble
This meant that the use of the gas in sat
ruation quantities by ordinary methods of gas
warfare would have the effect predicted.
Both the Army and Nachmansohn were fully
vindcated
Final word about the Nazis Tabun came in
April, 1916 when Brigadier General Hugh w.
Rowan, chief Chemical Warfare Officer of
the European Theater of Operations, got the
word he had long and anxiously awaited In
a captured depot at Ossa, near Leipzig an
advance intelligence team discovered $4,000
gas bombs, some of them weighing as much
as $50 pounds. Among them were 10000
bombs found to contain the Tabun and the
Sann Rowan's men were feverishly search
ing for A few days later in a wooded area
near Hamburg, another Allied intelligence
team found what at first glance looked like
thousands of wooden collins Union beino
opened, each was found to contain single
gas bomb
Scientists were called in to analvze the
contents of the bombs. AS they tested the
odorless, tasteless, invisible gas which emerged
from the steel containers, they discovered
that the German nerve gas was almost ident-
cal to that produced in the U. S.
1t was perhaps with Tabun and DIP in
mind that Senator Ebert Thomas of Utah
declared in 1916: "The United States as we'll
rs other countries possess biological and
chemical agents Of undreamed effectiveness
which could bring death, starvation and dis
ease to an entire country" Poison gas was
not used in World War II but according to
Prime Minister Clement Attlee, the decision
vas not ga moral but a military one, based
IN the premise that neither belligerent would
Undertake it's use as long as the other re-
rained."
The Germans no longer have facilities to
roduce Tabun or Sarin and thus to menace
he rest of the world with them. But their
ormulae are known to all military establish
nents throughout the world. One of Tabun's
hief production centers is in the Russian
one of Germany where quantities of the gas
we're found intact. Some of the German
hemists who worked on the development of
he nerve gases are now in the Soviet Union
others work in the United States, in Britain.
nd in France.
This must be borne in mind when one re-
alls the warning General Watt sounded in
convention of American chem
SITS:
Chemical weapons probably will be as de-
isive in any future as the atomic bomb"