ARE GAS MASKS FOR CIVILIANS EFFECTIVE

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 69, 23 March 1937, Page 8

ARE GAS MASKS FOR CIVILIANS EFFECTIVE

A “Father of a Family” Writes on the Futility of the Proposed Masks for

Civilians in the Event of an Air RaU

‘JN THE DAYS OF OUR YOUTH the

wearing of masks formed one of the fine diversions,” says the Northern Daily Telegraph of Blackburn in a homily leader on the new gas mask factory in the town.

“In a booklet called Gas Attacks, which has been compiled by a group of doctors in reply to the Government handbook, Personal Protection Against Gas—in which we are told that an efficient respirator is our best defence—we are informed that an effective respirator of the absorbent type costs at present about £3 10/-. Cheaper forms would protect for shorter periods and against lesshigh concentration of gas. It has been suggested that a simple respirator could be supplied at tho cost of about 2/-. Such a respirator would probably protect against phosgene for a short time, but not against cholopicrin, mustard gas, and the smokes. * “Our own newest gas,” “Father of a Family” goes on to say, “has proved the service respirators to be ineffective. If our chemists are capable of evolving such a monstrous brew, surely other countries, and potential enemies, are just as scientifically wellinformed— or, alas, misinformed.

the army mask, will those civilian masks be worth anything at all when the order is completed? “Tho known poison gases consist of lachrymators, or tear-gas; lung-irritants, or choking gas; vesicants, or blistering gas, and arsenical smokes, or sneezing g:.s. “But is it, or is it not, true —for so we have been scientifically informed —that the masks that will keep out the tear-gases and choking gases for a short time are no protection against a vesicant like mustard, which, when splashed on the skin or saturated through clothing, quickly causes fatal burns? “Mustard gas, is is said, will even penetrate rubber suits so that the wearers must change them frequently. Modern gases have been known to burn througn up-to-the-minute masks within thirty seconds, while a mask that will keep out all known gases will not be a sure guard against arsenical smokes which, if refined sufficiently—in a chemical and not a social sense—will even penetrate the filters of the army respirators.”

“What fun it was by donning a flimsy vizor to turn yourself into a nigger or a pantaloon, or a Mephistophelian ogre, and how the elders ministered to the riotous entertainment by their pretence of mirth or fear.

“And now civilisation, the thing whose praises are so lauded, has swung full circle and brought us back again to masks. Given another of those retrograde experiences described as ‘getting off where you got on.’ And set thoughtful minds to the counting of costs and wondering whether the modern mask should bo accepted as a symbol of intellectual and creative progress or of spiritual decline.

“Certainly, we find little cause for pride that in this year of grace the children of men should thus be driven to seek scientific protection against man’s inhumanity.

“With the rapid development of lethal gases, requiring the continual alteration of

“Yet resentment against the working of that depraved mentality so closely allied now with economic nationalism were wasted; and just as we are depressed by facts, so are we fortified by facts.

Below are the main features of the gas masks as described by Mr Geoffrey Lloyd, Under-Secretary of the State for the Home Department:— The filter-containers are being turned out at the factory at the rate of 500,000 a week. In 18 months considerably more than 30,000,000 should be ready. The now masks will: Weigh 11 ounces and be easily and quickly fitted on; Be proof against any gas which, so far as is known, could be used in war; and Give protection for ample time to enable the wearer to escape from concentrations of gas to shelters or gas-proof rooms or unaffected areas. In technique, both as regards the science of filtration and the comfort of the wearer, a great advance has been made with the respirator. Simple as they are in operation, the masks are really highly complicated scientific devices. They are in two separate and distinct parts. The component parts of the containers, which include the body and the ends, charcoal,. cotton pads, filte’" pads, wire gauze, muslin diaphragms and springs, are brought to the factory from various parts of the country and there assembled into complete containers. The other main part of the gas mask is the facepiece, component parts of which are made by various contractors in different parts of the country, assembled and then sent to the first regional storage depot at Manchester. Components of the filter a.c tested at Blackburn before being put into production. The Air Raid Precautions Department has a staff at the factory for testing.

“Gas-masks having been made an essential adjunct of the new life, it is imperative that Britain shall have the very best, and there is comfort in the assurance given by Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd that these of Blackburn manufacture are proof against ‘every poison gas known to the Government that could be used in war,’ and that the supply is going to be abundant.

“The thirty millions odd to be produced in the next eighteen months should be ample for the needs of a population of forty-five million.

“Manufacture, of course, is not everything. All the ingenuity and energy will go for nothing unless complemented by effective measures for placing the articles within easy reach of all for whom they are intended.

“Yet all the satisfaction slips away into the meshes of a gigantic irony. For, mad though it may seem, devoutly do we wish for once in life that a monumental enterprise with all its attributes of skill and endeavour will be scheduled at last as labour in vain. This, too, by way of completion, must go down among the ironical contingent, that our Government factory was built for the making of things to wear, after years of idleness it lias resumed its avocation, and we are praying that never will its tilings to wear be worn.”

A “Father of a Family” has a critical contribution in Tit-Bits on the futility of the proposed gas masks for the civilians in the case of an air raid. Ho writes:—

Every assembly operation is subjected to a test, and at the end of the process the complete container is tested.