Science Born of Poison, Fire and Smoke: Chemical Warfare and the Origins of Big Science

Ede, Andrew

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-58436-2_11

Science Born of Poison, Fire and Smoke: Chemical Warfare and the Origins of Big Science

Andrew Ede⁴

Chapter
First Online: 06 July 2017

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Part of the book series: Archimedes ((ARIM,volume 52))

Abstract

Big Science has transformed the practice of science. It has also changed our expectations of what topics science will address, and how scientists are trained and employed. Today, many scientists routinely expect to work in teams and in collaborations of teams rather than as individual researchers. Multinational projects such as the Human Genome Project and the International Space Station receive funding in the millions and billions of dollars. Funding agencies and the public have become accustomed to science that makes headlines, not just advancements that add to the body of scholarly knowledge. The importance of Big Science makes it a target for historical investigation, and such investigations can help us understand the impetus for the creation of this phenomenon and why it has taken the form that it currently exhibits. The historical problem is that most examinations of Big Science have presented physics programs during the Cold War as the foundational moment for Big Science. In fact, Big Science originated 40 years before the Manhattan Project and came from chemistry, not physics.

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Notes

1.
Alvin M. Weinberg, “Impact of Large-Scale Science on the United States,” Science 134, n. 3473, (1961) 164.
2.
Peter Galison and Bruce Hevly, Big Science: The Growth of Large-Scale Research (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992).
3.
Martin Aleksa and the Atlas Collaboration, “The ATLAS Experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider,” Journal of Instrumentation 3 (2008) JINST S08003.
4.
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5.
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6.
For a list institutes, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Wilhelm_Society.
7.
For a brief economic history, see Michael Monteón, “The British in the Atacama Desert: The Cultural Bases of Economic Imperialism,” The Journal of Economic History 35 (March, 1975), 117–33.
8.
Dietrich Stoltzenberg, Fritz Haber: Chemist, Nobel Laureate, German, Jew (Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2004), 96.
9.
The phrase “Brot aus Luft” appears frequently in association with Haber’s work, but it is not clear who said it first or when it was first said. The most likely candidate was Max von Laue. Max von Laue, “My Development as a Physicist,” in P.P. Ewald, ed., 50 Years of X-Ray Diffraction (Utrecht: International Union of Crystallography, 1962), 307. Modern authors such as Daniel Charles and Thomas Hager use the phrase without attribution. Haber, in his Nobel lecture said “…nitrogen fertilization of the soil brings new nutritive riches to mankind and that the chemical industry comes to the aid of the farmer, who, in the good earth, changes stones into bread.” Fritz Haber, “The Synthesis of Ammonia from it Elements,” Nobel Lecture, June 2, 1920, 339.
10.
See Stoltzenberg, Fritz Haber, ch. six.
11.
Stoltzenberg, Fritz Haber, 102.
12.
Stoltzenberg, Fritz Haber, 102.
13.
Jerome Alexander, “Nobel Award to Haber,” Letter to the Editor, New York Times, Feb. 3, 1920, 14.
14.
Augustin Mitchell Prentiss, Chemicals in war: A treatise on chemical warfare (London: McGraw-Hill, 1937), 132. A number of sources incorrectly say the chemical was xylyl bromide, which was used extensively by Germany and known by its code name “T-Stoff.”
15.
Prentiss, Chemicals in War, 132.
16.
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17.
Prentiss, Chemicals in War, 134.
18.
Daniel Charles, Mastermind: The Rise and Fall of Fritz Haber (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 160.
19.
For an overview of the German experience, see L.F. Haber, The Poisonous Cloud: Chemical Warfare in the First World War (Oxford: OUP, 1986); for the Canadian perspective, see George H. Cassar, Hell in Flanders Fields. Canadians at the Second Battle of Ypres (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2012).
20.
Prentiss, Chemicals in War, 663.
21.
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22.
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23.
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24.
See Arnold Thackray et al., Chemistry in America, 1876–1976 (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1985), ch.2 and 3.
25.
“Costs Less to Arm than Ransom City,” New York Times (November 7, 1915), 17.
26.
NAS, A History of the First Half-Century of the National Academy of Sciences 1863–1913 (Washington, DC: NAS, 1913), 13.
27.
NAS, A History of the First Half-Century, 209.
28.
NAS, A History of the First Half-Century, 208.
29.
NAS, A History of the First Half-Century, 213–4.
30.
NAS, A History of the First Half-Century, 213.
31.
NAS, A History of the First Half-Century, 211.
32.
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33.
Figures differ because the NRC received money that was not part of the NAS funding, but was still technically part of NAS accounting. NAS, A History of the First Half-Century, 229 and 229 n.70.
34.
Charles Lynch, Frank W. Weed and Loy McAfee, The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1923), 504
35.
Lynch, Weed and McAfee, The Medical Department, 506.
36.
Leo P. Brophy and George J.B. Fisher, The Chemical Warfare Service: Organizing for War (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1989), 6.
37.
Maj. Gen. John Pershing to Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War, in E.C. Sullivan, “George August Hulett,” (Washington DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1960), 92–3.
38.
Sullivan, “George August Hulett,” 91.
39.
Henry Crew, “Joseph Sweetman Ames,” (Washington DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1944), 191.
40.
Memorandum Regarding Conference Held in the Office of the Secretary of War, NARA RG 70, Special Projects, Boxes 111, 3.
41.
Memorandum Regarding Conference, 3.
42.
Memorandum Regarding Conference, 3.
43.
Memorandum, NRC to the Secretary of War, June 9, 1917.
44.
Chemical Corps Regimental Association, www.chemical-corps.org/honors/sibertbio.htm
45.
Leo P. Brophy & George J.B. Fisher, The Chemical Warfare Service: Organizing for War (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1970), 12.
46.
C.B. Wheeler, Orders for Colonel William H. Walker, Apr 2, 1918. NARA CWS 175. Box 4.
47.
R.C. Marshall, Jr. and Edward B. Ellicott, Completion Report of Construction of the Edgewood Plant of the Edgewood Arsenal (Washington, D.C.: [Government Printing Office], 1919), 16.
48.
Joel A. Vilensky, Dew of Death. The Story of Lewisite, America’s World War I Weapon of Mass Destruction (Bloomington, IN.: Indiana University Press, 2005), 8.
49.
Vilensky, Dew of Death, 4.
50.
Vilensky, Dew of Death, 4.
51.
Vilensky, Dew of Death, 19–21.
52.
W. Lee Lewis and G.A. Perkins, “the Beta-Chlorovinyl Chloroarsines,” Industrial and Engineering Chemistry 15 (Mar. 1923),290–5.
53.
Paul D. Bartlett, “James Bryant Conant,” (Washington, D.C.: NAS, 1983), 93.
54.
Vilensky, Dew of Death, 39.
55.
Vilensky, Dew of Death, 43.
56.
Vilensky, Dew of Death, 43–8.
57.
Vilensky, Dew of Death, 39.
58.
Prentiss, Chemicals in War, 652.
59.
Prentiss, Chemicals in War, 651–3.
60.
Stoltzenberg, Fritz Haber, 140.
61.
Stoltzenberg, Fritz Haber, 149–50.
62.
“Chemical Warfare Service,” Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry 10 (9) (Sept., 1918), 675–684.
63.
G.A. Burrell, “Report of Work Done at Bureau of Mines Experiment Station, American University,” (Washington, D.C.), May, 1919, NARA CWS 175. Boxes17, 1–30.
64.
Leonard P. Ayres, The War With Germany. A Statistical Summary (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1919), 133.
65.
Editorial, “Chemical Warfare Service Endangered,” Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry 12 (January,1920), 2–3.
66.
See for example, “The Chemical Warfare Service,” Editorials, Industrial and Engineering Chemistry 12 (April,1920), 314.
67.
See James McKeen Cattell, American Men of Science (New York: Science Press, 1927, 1933).
68.
See for example, H.J. Corper and O.B. Rensch, “The Effect of Mustard Gas (Dichlorethylsulphid) on Experimental Tuberculosis,” Journal of Infectious Disease 28 (March, 1921), 286–93.
69.
See H.W. Walker and J.E. Mills, “Chemical Warfare Service Boll Weevil Investigation. Progress Report,” Industrial and Engineering Chemistry 19 (June, 1927), 703–11. See also Edmund Russell, War and Nature. Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I to Silent Spring (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 64–6.
70.
See US Department of Energy, “Plowshare Program. Executive Summary,” Office of Scientific and Technical Information, plowshare.pdf.

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Department of History and Classics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
Andrew Ede

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Caltech, Pasadena, California, USA
Jed Buchwald
College of Arts & Science, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
Larry Stewart

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Ede, A. (2017). Science Born of Poison, Fire and Smoke: Chemical Warfare and the Origins of Big Science. In: Buchwald, J., Stewart, L. (eds) The Romance of Science: Essays in Honour of Trevor H. Levere. Archimedes, vol 52. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58436-2_11

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58436-2_11
Published: 06 July 2017
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-58435-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-58436-2
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