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//////////////Chemical Warfare ~ Ancient Persian-style

Steve Connor
LONDON, Jan 16: The earliest example of chemical warfare has been unearthed at an archaeological site in the Syrian desert, where ancient Persian soldiers gassed a platoon of Roman troops in about 256 AD by asphyxiating them with the smoke from burning bitumen and sulphur.
A makeshift grave of 20 Roman soldiers in full battle armour was discovered at the site of the ancient city of Dura-Europos in the 1930s but it is only now that scientists have been able to figure out exactly how they died. It was known that they were killed while defending the city against a siege by digging tunnels to counter those being dug by the Sasanian Persian army under the walls of the city. New evidence suggests the Roman troops were deliberately gassed, said Dr Simon James, an archaeologist at Leicester University.


//////////////////100 YEARS AGO TODAY


THE MUNICIPAL VACCINATOR

To The Editor
SIR, ~ It is strange that Mr Ganguli’s complaint should appear in your paper exactly when I was going to write you on the same topic.
The vaccinator who came to my house last Monday struck a match and held the latest over the smoky flame, depositing as much soot as he could manage. He then blew upon the blade “to cool it,” wiped off the soot with a bit of filthy cotton wool, by courtesy called boric cotton , felt the edge of the instrument with his finger and said “all right”. Of course I refused to be operated on under such conditions, and compelled him to follow my own instructions. Vaccinators have a curious knack of blowing upon everything. They blow on the hot lancet to cool it, blow out the lymph from the capillary tube, and blow on the part to be vaccinated “to remove dust”, ~ apparently thinking their own breath to be as sterile as high pressure steam.
I submit these prepositions for the consideration of the authorities:-
(1) Every vaccinator should carry in his kit a clean spirit lamp, a supply of clean cotton-wool in a glass-stoppered bottle and a phial of rectified spirit or, better, etherial soap solution. The cost of such an equipment is not much.
(2) The part to be vaccinated should be cleansed thoroughly by rubbing with a hit of cotton wool soaked in the rectified spirit of etherial soap solution. The vaccinator should scrub his own hands with soap and water.
(3) The lancet must be held in the flame of the spirit lamp, which must be smokeless (for there are spirits which smoke) for a minute, and used without wiping. Blowing strictly forbidden.
(4) Why not abolish the ordinary lancet and use instead Dr Mareschals’ “Vaccinostyle Individual”? These resemble steel pens and can be used stuck on a penholder. One Vaccinostyle should be used but once and then thrown away. The price is not more than half an anna, which people will pay gladly. ~ Yours, etc., RAJSHEKHAR BOSE, Manager, Bengal Chemical and Pharmaceutical Works, Ld.


KOL STTSMN

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