German Expert Details Progress Made in Research; Animals React Like Hi man Beings, Aid Experiment Kyoto, Apr. 11
"After twenty years of hard research we are on the track of a way to cure the after-effects of poison gas," Lt.-Col. Otto Muntsch, German delegate, told the 2,000 delegates at the quadrennial assembly of the Japan Medical Society here.
Despite twenty years of arduous research on poison gas and its after effects—studies pursued not only in Germany but by men in all parts of the world—there is no particular therapy known, said Dr. Muntsch. "What makes us feel that a great stride has been taken toward the solving of this problem is the discovery that poison gasses have the very same results on animals that they do on human beings, making it possible for the first time for actual laboratory experiments on some scale to be undertaken," he continued.
German interest in the after-effects of poison gas began after the World War, when it found itself with 70,000 patients of this type, some of whom experienced very serious poison gas, but that tuberculosis is strengthened and aided in its growth if the subject is gassed.
It is dangerous, he continued, to choose men who have been gassed to act as aviators, for such men will be affected changes in atmos-phene pressure, which may result in profuse bleeding and the stopping of Circulation. Though the influence of poison gas may not be really dangerous except to the lungs, the attack on the heart and nervous system leaves permanent impairment.
Even phosgene, regarded as a gas which concentrates its attack on the lungs, in reality generally has bad effects on all of the organs. Thou; phosgene becomes non-poisonous when absorbed in the blood, this process is so slow that during the time of absorption the phosgene affects the blood and circulation. "T have found that the diameter of red corpuscles doubles after gas inhalation," he said,—Reuter. after-effects.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.