CUTTING THE MUSTARD: NOVEL DETECTION OF CHEMICAL WARFARE AGENTS

摘要

Chemical warfare is the use of toxic chemicals in conflict. Chemical warfare agents (CWAs) have been condemned as abhorrent since their first modern use during World War 1. Their utilisation was prolific on both sides with the French first deploying the tear gases ethyl bromoacetate and chloroacetone and the Germans the irritants methylbenzyl bromide and dianisidine chlorosulfonate. A harrowing example of full-scale deployment of a chemical weapon occurred during the Second Battle of Ypres when Ger- man troops released chlorine gas on French, Canadian and Algerian troops, resulting in mass casualties. Most recently chemical weapons have been used, with detrimental effects, by Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War, by the Aum Shinrikyo cult in Matsumoto in 1994 and on the Tokyo Underground in 1995, and in the Syrian Arab Republic in Ghouta in 2013.