Abstract
THE word ‘gas' has come to stay as the name ??? of the atmospheric poisons that are used in warfare, but it is an unfortunate one as most of them are liquids and not very volatile, and some are non-volatile solids that are used in the form of aerosols. It is generally assumed that if air raids are perpetrated in a future war, the bombs will mostly be charged with ‘gas', but this is by no means certain. High explosive bombs would not only destroy more property, but would also probably inflict far more casualties than chemical bombs. On the other hand, bombing or spraying with a persistent substance, such as mustard gas, would greatly disorganise the life of a big city, as it would force the majority of the population to keep indoors until the contamination had been cleared away by the special squads. It is likely, then, that the raiders would use a mixture of high explosive, gas and incendiary bombs, and of course the raids would be on a vastly bigger scale than in 1917-18, because the aeroplanes available would be far larger and more numerous.
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Marshall, A. The Gases of War. Nature 137, 256–258 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137256a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137256a0