Chemical Warfare Secrets Almost Forgotten
Review by Enoch Callaway, MD, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, UCS
© 2006/2007
J.S. Ketchum
J.S. Ketchum
Documenting a Lost Decade of Clinical Research
© 2006/2007
J.S. Ketchum
J.S. Ketchum
Review by Enoch Callaway, MD
Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus
University of California San Francisco
Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus
University of California San Francisco
This is a fascinating book, perhaps best reviewed as a combination of books: (1) an autobiography of a scientist-physician studying chemical warfare agents from 1961 to 1971, (2) a collection of vignettes of fellow scientists he encountered, (3) a polemic against the aversion of politicians and the public to all chemical weapons, and, (4) a reference book on more than a dozen low lethality belladonnoids (atropine-like drugs such as BZ) and their antidotes (such as physostigmine), as well as valuable data on other mind-altering substances such as LSD-25, cannabinoids (marijuana-like drugs), butyrophenones (antipsychotic drugs) and even the most common disabling agent: alcohol.
His vignettes of fellow scientists also bring back memories of many departed friends and colleagues and a few (Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin, for example) that seem indestructible.
Ketchum’s selective defense of certain forms of chemical warfare strikes a sympathetic chord. While I was at Edgewood, we were preoccupied with the lethal nerve gas variously known as diisopropyl flurophosphonate, sarin or GB. From what I learned, I believed that death from nerve gas would be preferable to being incinerated by napalm or taking a phosphorus bullet in the gut. Of course, the newer low lethality agents seem even more humane.
I particularly remember the first case of major intoxication with a belladonnoid drug that I ever saw. A chemical warfare officer at Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah, who was working with GB (sarin) while wearing an exposure suit, began to convulse. It was immediately assumed that he had been exposed to the gas and he was immediately treated with atropine, a belladonna antidote for nerve agents. He received multiple injections before it was recognized that his disability did not result from GB exposure, but rather to an intemperate “night on the town” followed by a day in the desert heat while enclosed in a chemical warfare exposure suit.
Ketchum’s selective defense of certain forms of chemical warfare strikes a sympathetic chord. While I was at Edgewood, we were preoccupied with the lethal nerve gas variously known as diisopropyl flurophosphonate, sarin or GB. From what I learned, I believed that death from nerve gas would be preferable to being incinerated by napalm or taking a phosphorus bullet in the gut. Of course, the newer low lethality agents seem even more humane.
I particularly remember the first case of major intoxication with a belladonnoid drug that I ever saw. A chemical warfare officer at Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah, who was working with GB (sarin) while wearing an exposure suit, began to convulse. It was immediately assumed that he had been exposed to the gas and he was immediately treated with atropine, a belladonna antidote for nerve agents. He received multiple injections before it was recognized that his disability did not result from GB exposure, but rather to an intemperate “night on the town” followed by a day in the desert heat while enclosed in a chemical warfare exposure suit.
Enoch Callaway, MD
