NEARLY A TRAGEDY.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 2714, 23 June 1925, Page 3

NEARLY A TRAGEDY.

SCIENTIST’S NARROW ESCAPE. TRAPPED IN GAS CHAMBER. EXPERIMENTS ON FLIES. ON THE VERGE OF DEATH. While experimenting with Lewis ite, the gas that was to have been used to end the war had not the Germans signed 'the Armistice, Professor Harold Maxwell-Lefroy has had a narrow escape from death. He is a professor of entomology at the Imperial College of Science and Technology in South Kensington. The gas with which he was experimenting in this special laboratory there is odourless. and it was only by merest accident that he felt himself being overcome and made his escape. According' to his own version of the. affair. Professor Lcfroy was experimenting for the extinction of flies byspraying them with gas. He knew it could not be used as a spray in the ordinary way, but he was keen to know what effect it would have on them. Ply Farm on the Roof. For the purpose of such experiments the professor has a fly-farm on the roof. Ha had brought a number of the insects down and was in the closed-up laboratory with them, when suddenly he felt that his lungs were being filled with gas. He had been so engrossed in watching the effect of the poison on the flies that he had forgotten all about his own safety. Professor Lcfroy shouted to two men who were in the next room to leave at once, as there was a danger that the gas might get through the door and harm them. He tried to open the safety window, but the cord broke. When he got out into the corridor, not a moment too soon, lie was seen to be looking very ill, and was at once taken downstairs, where doctors administered oxygen, which revived him very soon. Flies Very Much Alive. The professor declares that, had he remained in the room another few minutes he would most certainly have met his death. As it was, he was on the point of collapse. His lungs were burned by the gas and it will be some time before they recover. The extraordinary thing is that the flies were not affected in any way. The professor went back to the chamber after he had been brought round and found the insects very much alive. The gas, while a very effective mankiller, is not an insecticide. It is a slow-poisoning gas, and is not lachrymal, and, according to Professor Lefroy, if any of it were dropped from an aeroplane people would walk about inhaling it without actually knowing that they wore doing so. Death would follow later from burned lugs or pneumonia.