IN GAS MASKS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 228, 27 September 1938, Page 7

IN GAS MASKS.

SCHOOLBOYS' WORK.

PROTECTION FROM FUMES.

AT MOUNT ALBERT GRAMMAR. Snout-like rubber contraptions stied over their faces, two boys at the Mount Albert Grammar School bent over the fume cupboard and the apparatus in which they were preparing chlorine. It was a scene with a faintly sinister air, except that one boy would giggle as the camera was turned on him—destroying the illusion.. For it was an illusion. It was not for war or the fears of war that they were preparing; it was just school, with a modern precaution that no tragedy or unpleasantness would be associated with it.

Mishaps have been associated with school laboratories and the preparation of chemicals giving off dangerous gases. Care has been taken at this Grammar i School, however, that' the laboratory assistants are fully protected. Respirators were purchased by the science department from a London chemical firm, and are now in daily use by those engaged in the preparation of chemicals. The gases so engendered are not necessarily dangerous, but there is protection in most instances by the fact that they are prepared in a special closet which is closed when the fumes are coming off, but sometimes odours are given off that are more than unpleasant and it is for this reason more than anything else that the respirators are used.

j They are not the full-face mask with ! oxygen supply that is common in European countries for the protection of soldiers and citizens against gas attack, but merely a round rubber mask fitting over the nose and mouth. The wearer breathes through a sponge which is soaked in a chemical preparation varying according to the type of gas that is being combated, and there is a valve [outlet. A hypo solution is used for 1 chlorine.

These respirators are common in industry, not only in laboratories, but also in mining, and in types of work where dust or fumes of various kinds are met with. For that reason there is not much to be gained from an inspection of statistics relating to their importation. Incidentally, the searcher would have to seek his information from the Customs lists under the heading of ["rocket and life-saving apparatus," which has quite a number of varied items, including diving-dresses!

Apparently New Zealahders as a whole are not worried about the dangers of gas attack. Officials have no recollection of nervous people importing their own respirators or gas masks, though naturally such things are included in army supplies. There is, however, an increasing importation of such items (not specifically named), for the figures show a rise from 1954 in 1934, to 2590 in 1935, and to 2737 in 1936. Those are the latest figures yet published. How many items of these totals "were gas masks of one type or another cannot be readilv obtained.