Carrying Mustard Gas on Clothing
There are many instances where the occupants of dugouts were gassed from the gas on the shoes and clothing of men entering the dugout. Not only were occupants of dugouts thus gassed but a number of nurses and doctors were gassed while working in closed rooms over patients suffering from mustard gas poisoning. Even under the conditions of warfare existing where the Americans were generally in action, the quantity of chloride of lime required amounted to several hundred tons per month which had to be shipped from the United States. Chloride of lime was also very convenient to have at hand around shell dumps for the purpose of covering up leaky shells, though rules for handling mustard gas shells usually prescribed that they be fired and where that was not practicable to bury them at least five feet under the surface of the ground. This depth was not so much for the purpose of getting rid of the gas as it was to get the shell so deep into the ground that it would not be a danger in any cultivation that might later take place.