POISON GAS ANTIDOTE

Hokitika Guardian, 5 July 1932, Page 8

POISON GAS ANTIDOTE

DISCOVERY IN ENGLAND. > - The staff of- the Chemical . Defence Research Department of the -A\ ar Office in England has at last; after expbri-, ments .stretching over ,14 years, dis-: covered an effective, antidote to all gases used in modern warfare, t It was disclosed in London that men have been sprayed with poison gas.•• The antidote was applied. The men survived' the tests, normal and liealthy. Not only is the discovery , of the greatest value as a means of military defence—-it is a gift to humanity. It means that the 8,000,000 citizens - of London and the populations of other cities cannot now be k'lled in a right.' poisoned horribly by gas bombs dropped from the air. i • v .- But in the triumph of this discovery there is the tragedy of sacrifice. The chief export in change of the experiments, Major W. R. .Galwey, M.C.. A 1.8.,. D-Ph., -died on 'March 6th. He was only 52 He had devoted 16'years of Ids life to finding the antidote. He, was daily in -contact with the most deadly poisons in the world, always exnerd’menting. working all day and far into the nighjb.The -cause of death was given as pnenmonia. But his staff are certain that lie gave his life for his country as surely as any soldier dying on a shell-scarred battlsfield.

The real experimental station, where the Ant’-gas materials and apparatus are tried out, is at Porton, Wiltshire where a number of retired - senior, officers of the artillery and engineers, with a hand of civil scientists, have investigated to find protection agamstgas. Now the life-shvW fo imiln has been found! .Major Galwey. after a' hrdliant army career, ret'red in '1926, He then acc-Cpted a‘civilian post, os head of a.department at Porten. and a. year later was appointed director of experiments. '

-M-i's Galwey said her bus I 'a nil had worked -ccasele sly, and g.ve-his whole life to research work.