Many people know Father Julius Nieuwland, CSC, as the chemist
and botanist for whom Nieuwland Science Hall is named. His greatest
claim to fame was helping perfect synthetic rubber in the 1930s.
Few people know that the priest inadvertently discovered a deadly
chemical weapon that he later believed would help make wars more
humane.
Nieuwland discovered the toxic substance that later became known
as Lewisite while working on his Ph.D. at Catholic University
in the early 1900s. He was fascinated by acetylene, a gas composed
of carbon and hydrogen that he later used in his synthesis of
synthetic rubber. His entire doctoral thesis, completed in 1904,
was devoted to the reactions of acetylene with other compounds.
Buried within that thesis was a paragraph that described the
reaction between acetylene and arsenic trichloride. The resulting
dark material possessed a nauseating and penetrating odor and
was so poisonous that exposure to it put Nieuwland in the hospital
for a few days.
There is no evidence that Nieuwland ever conducted further work
on the material. But others did.
After the Germans introduced poison chlorine gas into the stalemated
World War I, the United States, aware of its likely entry into
the war, began its own chemical weapons research program. Much
of the work occurred at universities, including Catholic University,
where Nieuwland's former thesis adviser told the head of one of
the chemical weapons units, Winford Lewis, about the material
Nieuwland had happened upon.
Lewis' initial attempts to refine Nieuwland's material led to
violent explosions, but aided by James Conant -- later to become
president of Harvard University -- Lewis eventually succeeded
in producing an oily, faintly yellow liquid that caused painful
blistering when applied to the skin and severely damaged the eyes
and respiratory systems. Because of its arsenic content, a small
quantity inhaled or dropped on the skin could readily cause death.
Lewisite had a distinct advantage over the then-prevalent chemical
agent mustard "gas" -- which like Lewisite was actually a liquid
-- in that it caused pain immediately. Mustard gas can take hours
to produce effects. The blistering effects of both Lewisite and
mustard gas meant they could produce enemy casualties even if
soldiers wore gas masks.
Lewis believed that a disabling Lewisite cloud-weapon could
be produced either from an associated explosion within an artillery
shell or sprayed from an airplane. In fact, Lewisite was described
after the war as the "dew of death."
Production of Lewisite began too late for it to be used in World
War I. In November 1918, 150 tons of it was ready for transport
from Ohio to Europe for a planned spring offensive that the allies
believed would win the war. But when Germany surprisingly sued
for peace, the material was quickly transported by military train
to the East Coast and dumped into the Atlantic Ocean. Production
facilities were rapidly dismantled.
Father Nieuwland knew about the deadly, if unintended, product
of his doctoral research. But in newspaper interviews he said
he considered Lewisite to be a humane weapon.
"Today the primary aim in war is not to kill but to incapacitate,"
the priest said. "If a man goes to the hospital suffering from
gas, he is as useless as if he were dead -- and to care for him
several other persons must be kept out of the battle lines. The
chances are that ultimately the victim will recover."
Interestingly, in 1936 Nieuwland died of a heart attack while
visiting the Catholic University lab where he'd first synthesized
the material.
Although its discoverer had died, Lewisite lived on. Between
world wars, the U.S. government continued to experiment with manufacturing
techniques while other countries began to produce and stockpile
the agent. Japan used Lewisite against the Chinese during the
early part of World War II. The U.S. manufactured approximately
20,000 tons of the compound during the war but never used it.
The surplus was again dumped into the sea during "Operation Geranium"
(presumably named as such because Lewisite smells like geraniums).
After World War II various countries including the Soviet Union
continued to manufacture and stockpile Lewisite, alone and in
combination with other toxins. Iraq is believed to have used Lewisite
in its 1980s war with Iran. Today the material is considered a
potential terrorist weapon.
But Lewisite's development had an upside.
Between the end of World War I and the beginning of World War
II, British and American military scientists labored to develop
antidotes to prevalent chemical warfare agents. And in 1941 a
group of biochemists at Oxford University succeeded in developing
a substance that came to be known as British Anti-Lewisite (BAL).
This rotten-egg-smelling drug proved amazingly effective in countering
the effects of Lewisite on the skin and eyes and in bodily systems
via an intramuscular injection that resulted in the excretion
of the toxic arsenic in urine. Every American infantryman during
World War II was provided a tube of BAL ointment.
Later BAL was determined to be very effective in treating lead,
gold, mercury and non-Lewisite causes of arsenic poisoning. And
in 1951 BAL was found to foster remarkable recovery in patients
suffering from Wilson's disease, a neurological condition caused
by the toxic accumulation of copper in the brain and liver. The
condition greatly impairs a person's ability to move. The treatment
was considered a miracle cure at the time. And despite the discovery
of many new drugs since 1941, BAL continues to be the drug of
choice for cases of arsenic poisoning and is stocked by the pharmacy
of every major hospital.
* * *
Joel Vilensky is a professor of anatomy and cell biology at
Indiana University School of Medicine (Fort Wayne). He is currently
researching the history of Lewisite for a possible book.
