Toxic Exposures
Mustard Gas and the Health Consequences of World War II in the United States
Seiten
2019
|
New in Paperback
Rutgers University Press (Verlag)
978-0-8135-8610-6 (ISBN)
Rutgers University Press (Verlag)
978-0-8135-8610-6 (ISBN)
Tells the story of how the US and its allies subjected thousands of their own servicemen to poison gas as part of their preparation for chemical warfare. The book also reveals the racialized dimension of these experiments, as scientists tested whether the effects of toxic exposure might vary between Asian, Hispanic, black, and white Americans.
Mustard gas is typically associated with the horrors of World War I battlefields and trenches, where chemical weapons were responsible for tens of thousands of deaths. Few realize, however, that mustard gas had a resurgence during the Second World War, when its uses and effects were widespread and insidious. Toxic Exposures tells the shocking story of how the United States and its allies intentionally subjected thousands of their own servicemen to poison gas as part of their preparation for chemical warfare. In addition, it reveals the racialized dimension of these mustard gas experiments, as scientists tested whether the effects of toxic exposure might vary between Asian, Hispanic, black, and white Americans. Drawing from once-classified American and Canadian government records, military reports, scientists’ papers, and veterans’ testimony, historian Susan L. Smith explores not only the human cost of this research, but also the environmental degradation caused by ocean dumping of unwanted mustard gas. As she assesses the poisonous legacy of these chemical warfare experiments, Smith also considers their surprising impact on the origins of chemotherapy as cancer treatment and the development of veterans’ rights movements. Toxic Exposures thus traces the scars left when the interests of national security and scientific curiosity battled with medical ethics and human rights.
Mustard gas is typically associated with the horrors of World War I battlefields and trenches, where chemical weapons were responsible for tens of thousands of deaths. Few realize, however, that mustard gas had a resurgence during the Second World War, when its uses and effects were widespread and insidious. Toxic Exposures tells the shocking story of how the United States and its allies intentionally subjected thousands of their own servicemen to poison gas as part of their preparation for chemical warfare. In addition, it reveals the racialized dimension of these mustard gas experiments, as scientists tested whether the effects of toxic exposure might vary between Asian, Hispanic, black, and white Americans. Drawing from once-classified American and Canadian government records, military reports, scientists’ papers, and veterans’ testimony, historian Susan L. Smith explores not only the human cost of this research, but also the environmental degradation caused by ocean dumping of unwanted mustard gas. As she assesses the poisonous legacy of these chemical warfare experiments, Smith also considers their surprising impact on the origins of chemotherapy as cancer treatment and the development of veterans’ rights movements. Toxic Exposures thus traces the scars left when the interests of national security and scientific curiosity battled with medical ethics and human rights.
SUSAN L. SMITH is a professor of history at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. She is the author of Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired: Black Women’s Health Activism in America, 1890–1950 and Japanese American Midwives: Culture, Community, and Health Politics, 1880–1950.
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Health and War Beyond the Battlefield
Part I: Preparation for Chemical Warfare
1. Wounding Men to Learn: Soldiers as Human Subjects
2. Race Studies and the Science of War
Part II: Toxic Legacies of War
3. Mustard Gas in the Sea Around Us
4. A Wartime Story: Mustard Agents and Cancer Chemotherapy
Conclusion: Veterans Making History
NotesIndex
| Erscheinungsdatum | 20.07.2019 |
|---|---|
| Reihe/Serie | Critical Issues in Health and Medicine |
| Verlagsort | New Brunswick NJ |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 152 x 229 mm |
| Gewicht | 286 g |
| Themenwelt | Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918) |
| Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► 1918 bis 1945 | |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte | |
| Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Militärgeschichte | |
| ISBN-10 | 0-8135-8610-0 / 0813586100 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-8135-8610-6 / 9780813586106 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
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