On the Fringe of the Great Fight

by George Gallie Nasmith

The varied nature of laboratory work in the army and its practical applications may be seen from the following examples:—

One day the O.C. of a hospital sent over a pint of tea suspected of poisoning 28 out of 29 men who drank it. From the history of the affair we did not believe that this could possibly be the cause, and after making a few rapid tests to exclude metals, we proved that the tea was not poisonous by the simple, practical test of drinking it, Major Rankin being the official tester. This method of making a practical physiological test rather astonished the British authorities.

A German gas mask found on the battle field was submitted to us to find what chemicals were present. That mistakes were sometimes made by the Germans was evident when we found that the mask had not been treated with chemicals at all; some of the Huns at least had been unprepared for a gas attack.

The clarifying apparatus on the British water carts was mechanically defective and usually broke at certain definite places. Recommendations were made by us after we had experimented with rubber instead of rigid connections, which resulted in all the water carts in the British army being equipped with rubber connections, the results being entirely satisfactory.

A great deal of experimental laboratory and field work was done with chlorine gas and the efficiency of gas masks and helmets. Experimental physiological and pathological work was done on animals with chlorine and other gases, and on the drying out and deterioration of gas helmets and the chemicals used in them. Subsequently a Gas Service was inaugurated and all work of this sort carried out in special laboratories at G.H.Q.

Quite a number of cases of nephritis occurred among soldiers, and arsenic was suggested as a possible cause. The laboratory was asked to examine a considerable number of samples of wine and beer to see whether traces of arsenic were present or not. None was found. A large quantity of wine found to be diluted with ditch water, and sold to our soldiers, was destroyed, and the vendors fined.

One day a young medical officer, so excited that he could hardly speak, rushed into the laboratory with a lot of dead fish. After some questioning we found that there were tens of thousands of dead fish in the Aire-La Bassee canal and, as this ran into the German lines, he suspected that the canal water had been poisoned by the enemy. We told him that we thought the fish had probably died from asphyxiation as a result of organic matter from a starch works being emptied into the stream. He went away unconvinced, to make a further enquiry and returned later in the day to report that the fish in the canal died every year in the spring when a certain distillery dumped its waste into the canal. Thus did former experience with starch mills pouring their effluents into Ontario streams and killing fish prove of unexpected use.

The laboratory was used a great deal by the highly trained officers of the Indian Medical service, who were always wanting some unusual parasite or insect identified, and made a good deal of use of our library.

A German high explosive percussion bomb was brought in one day for us to identify the explosive present. We did not allow the messenger even to lay it down but besought him to hold it tight and to keep moving towards the explosives laboratory seven miles away while we escorted him quickly and safely from the premises. The way some of those chaps handled bombs and shells made you tired. It would have been a great pity if that two hundred year old building had been blown up and the British Army compelled to pay for it.

A poor soldier up and died one day without warning or preliminary sickness. They thought it might be poison, and his wife would have been deprived of her pension if the man had committed suicide. We were asked to examine the stomach contents to decide whether poison was present. No poison was found.