REPORT OF MEDICAL EXPERT
Dr. John S. Haldane, an authority on the physiology of respiration, who was sent by the British government to France to observe the effect of the gases, examined several Canadians who had been incapacitated by the gases.
“These men,” he said, “were lying struggling for breath, and blue in the face. On examining their blood with a spectroscope and by other means I ascertained that the blueness was not due to the presence of any abnormal pigment. There was nothing to account for the blueness and their struggles for air but one fact, and that was that they were suffering from acute bronchitis, such as is caused by the inhalation of an irritant gas. Their statements were to the effect that when in the trenches they had been overwhelmed by an irritant gas produced in front of the German trenches and carried toward them by a gentle breeze.
“One of the men died shortly after our arrival. A post-mortem examination showed that death was due to acute bronchitis and its secondary effect. There was no doubt that the bronchitis and accompanying slow asphyxiation was due to irritant gas.
“Captain Bertram, of the eighth Canadian battalion, who is suffering from the effects of gas and from wounds, says that from a support trench about six hundred yards from the German lines he observed the gas. He saw first of all white smoke rising from the German trenches to a height of about three feet. Then in front of the white smoke appeared a green cloud which drifted along the ground to our trenches, not rising more than about seven feet from the ground.
“When it reached our first trenches, the men in these trenches were obliged to leave, and a number of them were killed by the effects of the gas. We made a counter-attack about fifteen minutes after the gas came over, and saw twenty-four men lying dead from the effects of the gas on a small stretch of road leading from the advanced trenches to the supports. He, himself, was much affected by the gas, and felt as though he could not breathe.
“These symptoms and other facts so far ascertained point to the use by the German troops of chlorine or bromide for the purpose of asphyxiation. There also are facts pointing to the use in German shells of other irritant substances. Still, the last of these agents are not of the same brutality and barbarous character as was the gas used in the attack on the Canadians.
“The effects are not those of any of the ordinary products of combustion of explosives. On this point the symptoms described left not the slightest doubt in my mind.”