The scientist’s lab was in his home, and he employed his daughter Naomi, then a teenager, as a research assistant, historian Steve Sturdy told the BBC. Haldane and his team were able to identify the gas used at Ypres as chlorine by examining discolored metal buttons on soldiers' uniforms.Īfter he returned to his home in Oxford, England, he started experimenting to find out what would keep the gas out. His job was to ID the kind of gas that was being used. Thirty years into his career, in 1915, Haldane was sent to Ypres after the battle, the BBC writes.
He had also done previous work on how to protect miners from gas using respirators, according to Jerry Chester for the BBC.īut Haldane’s other big contribution didn’t just endanger birds: It endangered him and his family. Smithsonian has written about Haldane before, because he was the man who devised the idea of using canaries and other small animals in coal mines to detect odorless, deadly gases. He taught at several universities and developed medical remedies for common industrial ailments. But he wasn’t a practicing doctor: instead he was a medical researcher, writes the Science Museum in London. Haldane, born on this day in 1860 in Edinburgh, Scotland, got his medical degree in 1884. One of these scientists was John Scott Haldane, whose spectacular moustache (see above) would likely have prevented him from getting a good seal when wearing a gas mask. Unprepared for German forces to use chlorine gas as a weapon, many Allied soldiers suffocated, unprotected, during the Battle of Ypres in 1915.īut they gained protection thanks to the efforts of scientists who worked on the home front. The story has been updated to reflect Morgan’s contributions. In fact, Garrett Morgan, a Black inventor based in Ohio, filed a patent for a gas mask in 1914, a year before Haldane started researching his device. After a while, condensation in the mask built up, which severely encumbered the wearer, requiring the mask to be taken off.Editor’s Note, May 11, 2022: This article previously suggested that John Haldane was the first person to invent a gas mask. The M2 protected the wearer for at least five hours against the common World War I chemical weapon phosgene. These two glasses were held in place by a metal ring on each eyehole, with 12 dents in each so as to better hold the glass on the mask.
In April, the rectangle was replaced by two round pieces of cellophane glass due to problems on the earlier model, which could not be cleaned without removing the glass. The first model of the M2 mask was introduced during March 1916 and had a rectangular piece of cellophane glass for viewing, protected by a piece of glass in front of it. During 1917, an additional mask strap was produced, intended to be worn around the head of the wearer. Instead, it was made of one piece of material which covered the face completely. In contrast with gas masks made later in the war, the M2 did not have a special filter that fit onto the mask. While switching gear, some soldiers inhaled the poison gas and became casualties. The untrained soldiers tended to put on the Small Box Respirator when first confronted with a gas attack and then switch to the M2 when they realized they would have to wear it for a long time. The US Army issued its soldiers the British-made Small Box Respirator to protect against chemical attack, and the French-made M2 gas mask in case a mask had to be worn for an extended period of time. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, it was unprepared for chemical warfare. British forces were issued 6.2 million units of the second model between May and November 1916 and used it as late as August 1918. A second model introduced in April 1916 was produced in three different sizes and included two separate eyepieces, so folding it would not cause damage.
The first M2 model was produced in only one size and often incurred damage when it was folded for placement in a metal container. An order of 600,000 masks was produced in February 1916 and introduced for British forces the following month. The M2 mask was based on a design proposed in 1915 by René Louis Gravereaux of Paris.