1936

Nerve Gas

Gerhard Schrader (1903–1990)

German Chemist Gerhard Schrader was working for his country’s chemical conglomerate IG Farben, experimenting with organofluorine compounds as insecticides. But many compounds that will kill insects will also kill humans, and two days before Christmas in 1936, he and his lab assistant unknowingly produced one of them. After the holidays, they were characterizing this new compound when they both noticed that they were getting short of breath and their vision was dimming. They left the lab quickly, a sound decision. They were extremely close to becoming the first victims of the compound we now call tabun, the world’s first nerve gas.

Most of these compounds are actually volatile liquids rather than outright gases. But they all work the same way, by irreversibly binding to a crucial enzyme called acetylcholinesterase, which clears out a major neurotransmitter compound, acetylcholine, after it’s released from the nerve cells. If that enzyme is taken out of commission, the acetylcholine builds up quickly and fatally. Schrader and his assistant were noticing these effects on the nerves controlling their lungs and their eyes, which are the first organs to be affected. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (ones that are reversible and less strong than the nerve gases) can have actual medical uses, and they are indeed very effective pesticides, but concerns about their effects on human health have seen their use restricted more and more over the years.

The Germans industrialized nerve gas production during World War II (a fearsomely toxic and dangerous process), but it did not become a factor in the war for a variety of reasons, one of which was the belief that the U.S. would rapidly reproduce the agent for use against Germany. Schrader and his group produced progressively more poisonous variants, though, as the war went on, and afterward both the U.S. and the Soviet Union made and stockpiled still more. The major nations of the world have since officially renounced these weapons, but—hideously and disgracefully—nerve gas has been used by others in small wars, and, tragically, in a terrorist attack by a deranged Japanese cult on the Tokyo subway.

A chemical-warfare suit designed for use in World War II, but (fortunately) never used. Whether it would have been sufficient protection against a nerve agent, though, is not clear.