Lieut-Col Y. Harada added a report on the medical and physiological aspects of the gas demonstrated. He produced lung tissue from guinea pigs killed by the gas and pointed out the lesions caused: inflammation and haemorrhage. He then passed round a bottle containing phosgene which, it was said, had been extracted from the shell and which some of the braver correspondents sniffed, The Japanese spokesman said that the first indications that the Chinese were employing poisonous gas were received in the Lotien sector on September 23. On Octobe- 12, again gas shells fell near Chinchia village, he continued, and on the following day at Tatungnan. All of these shells, however, exploded and it was not until October 14 that the Japanese, in seizing Tapingkiang, found an unexploded gas shell, the spokesman said. He added that the investigators had failed to determine where the gas had been manufactured.
The spokesman explained that there had been no casualties in the Japanese ranks from the gas because the soldiers had been instructed to use their gas masks at the slightest indication of gas danger.
In reply to e question put by one of the correspondents, the spokesman: said that the Japanese at present did not contemplate using poison gas against the Chinese in reprisal, Chinese Denial The Jepanese allegation that the Chinese used poison: gas was cotegorically denied by Mr. O. K. Yui in his capacity as military spokesman yesterday afternoon, Declaring that China would not resort to such inhuman acts, Mr. Yw told a representative of the "North" China Daily News" that the Japanese statement was apparently to counteract the world-wide condemna* tion against their barbarism.
During press conferences recently, the Health office of Nations were reported to have examined several Chinese soldiers. finding them to be "suffering from the effects of some vesicant agent, mostly gas of the mustard group, re" leased. by gas bombs or shells'
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