Choking agent

A **choking agent**, also called a **pulmonary agent**, is a type of chemical weapon.  Choking agents make fluid build up in the lungs, and can cause suffocation.

The most common examples of choking agents are chlorine and phosgene.  There are others, but they are not often used.

## Phosgene
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Phosgene is the most dangerous choking agent that is commonly used.

Phosgene can be a liquid or a gas.  As a gas, it is heavier than air, so it can stay near the ground (where people can breathe it in for long periods of time.  It smells like freshly cut grass or moldy hay.

Along with being a choking agent, phosgene is also a blood agent.  This means it keeps oxygen from getting into the body's cells.  Without oxygen, a person's cells will die, and the person will suffocate.

Chlorine gas is very dangerous if it is inhaled.  Chlorine can react with water in the lungs to make hydrochloric acid.  This is a very strong acid which can burn the lungs so badly that a person dies.

If a choking agent is inhaled, it usually causes:

About four months later, the German Army used chlorine gas for the first time against French and Algerian soldiers.  These soldiers did not know about this new weapon, and they panicked and tried to run away.  However, running makes chlorine's effects worse.  One soldier who survived said:

*[I watched] figures running wildly in confusion over the fields. Greenish-gray clouds swept down upon them, turning yellow as they traveled over the country blasting everything they touched and shriveling up the [plants]. . . . Then there staggered into our midst French soldiers, blinded, coughing, chests heaving, faces an ugly purple color, lips speechless with , and behind them in the gas soaked trenches, we learned that they had left hundreds of dead and dying .*

The German Army used chlorine gas as a weapon many more times, against French, Canadian, and Russian soldiers.  In one attack on Russian soldiers in Poland, 9,000 Russian soldiers were injured by the gas, and more than 1,000 were killed.

However, soon soldiers learned that the effects of chlorine were not as bad if they stayed still, got as high off the ground as possible, and used a damp cloth to cover their mouths and faces.  Because chlorine gas is green, soldiers could see the chlorine coming and would have time to protect themselves.  This made chlorine gas less deadly, and both sides soon switched to using phosgene.

### Phosgene
Phosgene was first used by the German Army to attack the British Army in 1915.  After that, phosgene was used often during World War I.  Countries on both sides of the war - including Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States - used phosgene to attack enemy soldiers.  Often they mixed it with chlorine, with the goal of killing more people. during the war (a total of about 85,000 deaths).

## Use after World War I
After people saw the effects of poison gases during World War I, these gases were not used often after that war.

However, the Imperial Japanese Army used phosgene against China many times during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945).

In 2007, Iraqi insurgents used chlorine bombs to attack soldiers and civilians.  Over 350 people got sick from the first attack. In two other attacks, more than 30 people died in each attack.

## Related pages
* Chemical warfare
* Chemical weapons in World War I
* Chemical Weapons Convention

## References