The picture shows mustard gas wounds on a French body. The man had "taken the full force of a gas attack" and the mustard had burnt through his clothes into his groin. I had not thought that mustard was as penetrative as this. Would it have been due to being close to a gas shell exploding? Would wounds like this be expected to heal? Phil B

Here is a website which should give you some additional background on the subject. Borden Battery

Chemical Warfare Websites - Part 29
Note: CEF Study Group member websites denoted with asterisk "*"
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Medical Manual of Chemical Warfare --- June 2006
The Medical Manual of Chemical Warfare website is based on the "publication by His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1941 Edition, and is based on data from 1918. A detailed account of the general effects of gases used during war and the appearance, physical properties, effect, treatment and decontamination of the vesicant gases, Mustard and Lewisite. Chapters VIII and IX have been omitted as these relate to gas warfare on civilians and Armed Forces during World War 2." [Parent Link is WWI Documents, Medical Front, http://www.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/]
http://www.vlib.us/medical/HMSO/contents.htm

Mustard gas and the chemicals derived from it are vesicant agents. They cause the skin, mucous membranes (the moist tissues lining the mouth, nose, lungs) and the surface of the cornea to react with intense inflammation and blistering. The chemicals can easily penetrate clothing - I don't think the material would be 'burnt'. The uniform may have been splashed with liquid Mustard gas when the shell/s burst. I read of one case where this happened on the scalp. The individual suffered deep burns. Alternatively, in colder weather the liquid would lie on the ground or on puddles of water. When the soldier sat down, the Mustard gas would soak into the clothes and cause the classic reaction.

Robert

To add to Robert's excellent bit of info, Mustard was known for being more effective in those parts of the skin where it was moist (i.e. with sweat: armpits, etc) which makes it quite a fiendish substance. One of the first measures that medical staff took with mustard cases was to remove clothing to avoid soaked items further damaging the skin.

Gloria

Would the wounds heal or would there be permanent scarring? Most of the burns in the picture look, to my untrained eye, superficial. I suppose much might depend on what type of tissue is affected. Lung damage seems to have been persistent. Phil B

Here`s something off the spartacus site:-
Mustard Gas (Yperite) was first used by the German Army in September 1917. The most lethal of all the poisonous chemicals used during the war, it was almost odourless and took twelve hours to take effect. Yperite was so powerful that only small amounts had to be added to high explosive shells to be effective. Once in the soil, mustard gas remained active for several weeks.

The skin of victims of mustard gas blistered, the eyes became very sore and they began to vomit. Mustard gas caused internal and external bleeding and attacked the bronchial tubes, stripping off the mucous membrane. This was extremely painful and most soldiers had to be strapped to their beds. It usually took a person four or five weeks to die of mustard gas poisoning. One nurse, Vera Brittain, wrote: "I wish those people who talk about going on with this war whatever it costs could see the soldiers suffering from mustard gas poisoning. Great mustard-coloured blisters, blind eyes, all sticky and stuck together, always fighting for breath, with voices a mere whisper, saying that their throats are closing and they know they will choke."





British Gas Casualties: 1914-18 Deaths Non-Fatal
Chlorine 1,976 164,457
Mustard Gas 4,086 16,526

I'm currently reading an account of Loos and the gassing there. One officer writes that he had to spent all night keeping a colleague standing upright after he'd been gassed. Why would that be?
Marina

At a guess, perhaps the fluid forming in the lungs would be more threatening if you were horizontal? Phil B

Phil,

Re Mustard scars, I suppose it depends on the extent of the wounds: I'd say that the poor American soldier in this image at the WFA website is likely to have some mark remaining after he recovered. Other than that, a case of Mustard I know of, while not scarred -that I know-, would suffer periodically skin rashes to the end of his life.

Gloria

Am I right in thinking it was one of the reasons given for taking kilts away from Highland regiments? The gas would 'seek out' the sweaty bits of the anatomy, and the waist, crotch and backs of the knees would be vulnerable.

I had heard that as well.

Yes, mustard gas did take the fun out of wearing a kilt on the battlefield. (What do Scotsmen actually wear under their skirt? that is the eternal question.) I have read very recently in a book on gas warfare that mustard gas did lead directly to the moth-balling of the kilts.

I have held in my hands the original carbon copy of a seven-page memo written by a Major General Amos Fries (a real rat!) to General Pershing in the 1920's, when the latter was Chief of the General Staff, stating that in the entire world, there was not a single veteran of WW I, from any army, permamently disabled by any gas weapon. Of course Pershing knew that Fries was lying, but Fries was totally in bed with the US chemical industry (when he wanted a second star he went directly to the chemical industry, had a bill written granting him his second star, it was sent to Congress, passed, and then to the President, who signed it, thereby going completely about Pershing.), and was immune to Pershing's displeasure. I have also held and read some of this correspondence on this coup in the original.

As to the lack of any permament disability claimed by Fries ( may Allah curse his name!), my father's Flamm=Trupp was conducting a flame attack near Reims on October 6, 1918, and a German gas shell fell near them in no-man's-land, and the whole Trupp (probably nine men) were blinded, my father got his sight back in three days, but three of his comrades were permamently blinded.

Fries was trying to get the production of poison gasses restarted in the US (he was the head of the Chemical Warfare Service) on behalf of the chemical industry, citing that it would be useful to kill vermin and maintain order in America's jails and prisons. (That is a quote.) He also wrote a book about how any political activity by women, of any sort, was communistic. A real peach. Anyone knowing anything about this guy, and especially his relationship with British General Foulkes, the commander of the Special Brigade, please chime in.

Bob Lembke

If, as reported, only a small amount of mustard was needed in a HE shell to make it effective, roughly what proportion of shells would have contained it? Were there any good reasons NOT to use mustard in shells, other than on ground you wished to take? Phil B

I understood it was July 1917 was the first recorded incidents’ of Mustard Gas was used by the Germans. I have recently read where a RGA gunner was ordered to see if the gas had cleared by taking off his mask and sniffing the air to see if the all clear could be sounded. “Like sticking your nose up close in a jar of Coleman’s mustard” was the written reply.
Paul

Thinking back to my (limited) NBC training in the TA, late 70's, mustard was a disabling weapon, intended to - well, disable - the enemy, rather than kill them (although if that happened, no-one was going to complain); the idea was that it would cause casualties that the enemy had to cope with (and of course, men who couldn't fight), while not permanently destroying the land you had to go on to fight over.

I suspect that not huge numbers were killed outright by mustard (tho' phosgene would have been different), but many were permanently disabled by the stuff. My wife had an uncle (long dead now) who had received a lungful in the trenches. As a small girl, her memory of him was sitting in a chair coughing: that's all she remembers of him - coughing.

Actually, I'm not normally a fan of Denis Winter, but pages 121 to 126 of "Death's Men" contain a very useful and interesting (and, I assume, accurate) introduction to gas warfare.

Not an expert here, but I have repeatedly seen the figure of 50% / 50% cited, not just a touch of Coleman's.

Bob Lembke

Although this book is specific to the Canadian Corps, it is full of information on the use and counter-use of poisonous gas during the Great War - I would rate it as a reference text on gas warfare for the Canadian Corps and a good cross-reference for researchers of the other armies. Dr. Cook is now with the Canadian War Museum.

No Place to Run - The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the First World War
Tim Cook, UBC Press (1999)

Borden Battery

Gas warfare is not my speciality and not something I deal with everyday, however burns are something I do deal with everyday.

The French soldier appears to have suffered some partial thickness burns and mostly full thickness burns. Not much superficial burns there. If he'd survived, there would've been significant scarring.

The American soldier, although the photo is black and white, appears to have suffered full thickness burns. There will also be some partial thickness burns mixed in there as well. Again if he survived, significant scarring would result.

All burn wounds eventually heal. However there are so many factors to consider. The size of the burn, depth of burn, cause of burn, age of victim/patient, effective first aid, fluid resuscitation, pre-existing health problems, potenial of sepsis and other infections, the list goes on.

With correct burn management, dressing materials, surgical intervention and so on, yes these wounds would heal. But we are talking about the years 1914-18 and a few years beyond, so survival rates from moderate to severe burn injuries would be low.

Scar tissue is burns become an issue when a wound doesn't heal within 21 days. If a burn heals within 21 days, there will always slight discolouration of skin. The darker the skin, the worse the scarring is. Asian skin also scars worse than Anglo-Saxon/Celtic/European skin. Scarring will also result after surgical intervention i.e. Debridement and Split Skin Grafting.

Anyway I won't go any further as burns is a very large and complex subject and those of us in the profession are forever learning more about it.

Cheers,

Tim

Thanks for that, Tim. I have been led to believe (Wife is ex-burns & plastics nurse) that once the % of skin area burnt (to what degree?) exceeds a certain amount, then survival is unlikely. Bearing in mind the state of burns treatment and sepsis management in WW1, is it fair to assume that similar rules of thumb applied to mustard burns? Phil B

I don't know for sure, but isn't it something to do with %age body area covered by burns, in relation to the age of the victim?

Phil and Steven,

We still use this "formula" today, although I have seen it fail, which is always nice.

We call it the "Survival Formula". Age + %TBSA = Chance of Survival. The closer the answer is to 100, the chance of survival decreases. For example, a patient who is still with us and almost ready for discharge after 150 days in the unit, was 20 when burnt and suffered 80% burns. Adds up to exactly 100. He was lucky to survive and they almost lost him in the chopper on the way to us.

When determing the area of burns, usually the Rule of Nines or a Lund and Browder Chart are used down here. In the unit we use the Lund and Browder Chart, while we teach non-burn specialist hospital and health professionals to use the Rule of Nines due to it's relative simplicity. However it's slightly different for kids. For a quick estimate, we use our hand which is equal to approx 1.5%. So you can move your hand around the burnt areas and get a quick estitmate of the size of the burn.

I am unsure what would've been used to estimate burn percentage (or TBSA) during the First World War as the Lund & Browder Chart originated in the US in 1944 and the Rule of Nines (full title is Wallace Rule of Nines) originated in the UK in 1951.

I just remembered something too. There are also inhalation burns. The more severe they are, the more likely the injury will be fatal. You can show very little signs of burns on your skin, yet suffer severe inhalation burns and die. Can you imagine the damage done by Mustard Gas when inhaled?

Cheers,

Tim

Thanks, Tim.

Whichever way you think about it, it doesn't bear thinking about!

I`ve seen people moribund due to emphysema, COPD, heart failure etc and it`s not nice. The men who died from gas inhalation must have been among the worst sufferers of the war. Unfortunately, they`re also among the least remembered, largely because we don`t who they are. Phil B

I have read a variety of materials. medical reports, that report to Pershing from that snake (I shouldn't say that, I rather like snakes!) Fries on the "lack" of long-term effects of gassing, and a big issue was whether or not gassing led to a lot of tuberculosis in later life. The doctors seemed to think so, to generalize; Fries of course denied this. Fries wanted the US to resume manufacture of poison gasses and to manufacture and stockpile enough to be able to gas and destroy European battle fleets sailing across the Atlantic to destroy the US. You can imagine how warships can batten down very tightly for storms; given the nature and weight of WW I war gasses, you can imagine how much gas he (and his masters at DuPont, et al) wanted manufactured. And it seems that the idea, given the nature of the open ocean, aircraft of the day, etc., how ineffective such a weapon would be against a battle fleet. Probably only effective against the aircrews involved.

I can recall that post WW II US warships had exterior piping, nozzles, etc. to wash off nerve agents while still battened down. Nerve agents, which allow a drop of material to kill in 30 seconds, might make such an attack from the air at least have some logic, although modern ships are fought with the men inside the structures, most guns and even turrets are robotic, etc. Design for nuclear fallout also is design for gas attack.

If you want to hear about something really nutty, I have on good authority a reliable account of WW I flame throwers being used to spray, not flame oil, but liquid poison gas on the enemy. Now, that is an assignment! And it seems to have been an effective attack, but I don't think that it was ever repeated. The problems with such an attack method are immense. Until I publish I don't want to cite the source, unfortunately.

Bob Lembke

The more I learn about poison gases (mustard or others) and their ghastly effects, the more I resent Foulkes' suggestion that gassed casualties shouldn't be considered as wounded.

Gloria

There is an account of being poisoned with Mustard Gas and treatment for it in the book The Bells of Hell Go Ting a Ling A Ling - author's name not to hand as I am at work.

I dare you to ask the next kiltie you see what's got underneath - but don't call it a skirt!
Marina

Squirrel - Eric Hiscock is the name you're groping for.

Marina - in my day, it depended: if ladies were expected to be present or not had quite a bearing (if not a bareing!)

There have been some excellent replies concerning mustard gas and its effect on the body but let us not forget that it also caused major problems for animals during WW1. The veterinary archive in the AMS Museum has some very interesting papers on the effect of gas on animals and how they were treated.

Pete Starling

Can anyone tell me what the gas looked like?

All the descriptions I've read tell of skin contact with the liquid and contamination of the ground.

Was it an actual gas? could you see it? what colour did the cloud look like if you could see it?

Many thanks

Ian

Ian
It is a brown oily liquid with a very low boiling point and vapourises in sunlight. It is not in fact a gas.
Simon

Thanks V much Simon.

I'm curious as to what it looked like on vapourising. Do you know?

Ian

I am not sure that it was visible as a vapour.
Simon

My step-grandfather served in the 17th London from 1915 to 1918 and was exposed to mustard agent. After the war he emigrated to Australia and farmed a station, and later emigrated to San Francisco, California, USA.

His first son, Peter, was born with a congenital brain tumor that grew to be the size of a baseball coming out of the back of his head. It is believed that the tumor was related to grandpa's exposure to mustard agent during the war. The kid died at age 8 in 1943 or 1944. The last time my dad (son of my grandmother from a previous marriage) saw Peter was when dad was on a brief leave from the U.S. Army. Dad said the little boy gave him a feeble salute while lying in bed. A couple weeks later he was dead.

My Uncle Al, grandpa's second son, was born with childhood polio but I don't know whether that was related to the mustard exposure. Uncle Al grew out of the polio and he's in fine health now.

I'm named after my late Uncle Peter. Grandma didn't appreciate my dad's recycling of the name because it brought up too painful a memory.

More of grandpa's wartime anecdotes are on the 17th London thread in the Units and Formations subject area.

I am not aware that Mustard gas was visible when vapourised but it had a characteristic smell.

Robert

...often described as "garlic smell"

Gloria

But definitely not visible, only detectable by smell and the obvious symptoms?

This is from A M Prentiss, Chemicals in War (1937)
p181: “In its pure state, dichlorethyl sulphide is a transparent amber oily liquid … It is almost odourless in ordinary field concentrations and in strong concentrations resembles horse-radish or mustard.”

p187: “… the mustard-gas solution is scattered in the form of gas clouds, or a finely divided spray composed of liquid particles varying in size from an atomized mist to droplets resembling fine rain. These liquid particles are very stable against humidity and cling firmly to the ground and vegetation. The clouds of mustard vapour formed by the explosion of shells are not at all visible in dry weather and only slightly visible in damp weather. They are effective for about 6 hours on open terrain and for 12 to 24 hours in places protected by vegetation from the wind and sun.”

Simon

Many thanks Simon.

I take it an ordinary respirator would only protect the users face then, exposed skin, etc would still be affected?

As you say, the respirator protected only face and breathing functions/organs. The rest was unprotected , exposed skin as well as skin under clothing: clothes soaked with mustard had to be removed.

Gloria