Bioterrorism In World War I

One of the exhibits at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Silver Spring focused on bioterrorism used in World War I, specifically gas attacks on soldiers. Poison gas is still seen as one of the world’s most terrifying a detrimental weapon used in wars. Gas attacks would greatly affect the soldiers because the poisonous gas could be released at any time without warning. Gas attacks could also quickly spread due to a gust of wind, only harming more soldiers. To help combat these attacks, soldiers needed to develop “gas mask discipline”. Gas mask discipline was created to limit the casualties and prevent more soldiers from being injured in anyway by gas attacks. Although these gas masks were to help soldiers, many soldiers found the mask uncomfortable which therefore affected their ability to properly fight in the war. One soldier even described the mask as: “It is safe, but like the deadly poison which forced its invention, it is not sane”.
Most common gases used in the war were phosgene, chlorine, and mustard gas. Chlorine is often used in biology the first being in emergent properties. Pure chlorine is a poisonous gas; used in emergent properties of a compound, when chemically combined with sodium it forms sodium chlorine also known as table salt. Out of the several elements in the human body, one of them being chlorine makes up 0.2% of our body mass. Lastly, we see Chlorine in electron transfer and ionic bonding: “When an atom of sodium (11Na) encounters an atom of chlorine (17Cl) a sodium atom has a total of 11 electrons, with its single valence electron in the third electron shell. A chlorine atom has a total of 17 electrons, with 7 electrons in its valence shell. When these two atoms meet, the lone valence electron of sodium is transferred to the chlorine atom, and both atoms end up with their valence shells complete” (Reece