Lung warfare agent
Lung warfare agent is a collective term for a class of warfare agents whose effect is aimed at damaging the respiratory organs , especially the lungs . Lung warfare agents are the oldest chemical weapons in the sense of substances that are used as weapons due to their poisonous effect.
The simplest and cheapest, chlorine , no longer meets the requirements made of a chemical weapon due to the unsafe blowing process. The substances phosgene , diphosgene (Pstoff) and chloropicrin (Klop) are still of military importance .
They became notorious through the First World War . In Germany mainly under the name " Grünkreuz ", which goes back to the grenades used by the German Army . The term Grünkreuz is not a synonym for lung warfare agents, but merely describes the warfare agents or grenades used by the German side in the First World War.
Examples of lung warfare agents
Symptoms
Most choking agents cause swelling of the mucous membrane in the alveoli ( alveoli ). The extended diffusion path leads to a delayed gas exchange in the lungs. In addition, toxic pulmonary edema forms .
The first few symptoms are not severe and are easy to miss. Shortly after the volatile lung warfare agent penetrated the airways , the throat area was slightly scratched . A symptom-free interval of about six hours now sets in . Coughing, shortness of breath and malaise follow . Treatment with cortisone must start here at the latest . If left untreated, the effect cannot be reversed twelve hours after exposure and death occurs after 36 hours .