Not far from Warsaw, on May 31, 1915, the Germans emptied 12 thousand chlorine cylinders, filling the trenches of the Russian army with 264 tons of poison. More than three thousand Siberian riflemen were killed, and about two were hospitalized in a critical condition. This tragedy was the impetus for the development of a gas mask, which forever inscribed the name of N. D. Zelinsky in the history of the Fatherland.
It should be noted separately that the 217th Kovrov Regiment and the 218th Gorbatovsky Regiment of the 55th Infantry Division, which took on the "chemical" strike, did not flinch and repelled the German offensive. And a little earlier, on April 22, the French front was successfully broken through by a German gas attack: the Entente fighters left the trenches in horror.
The first reaction to the gas attack in Russia was an attempt to mass-produce wet anti-chlorine masks, which was overseen by Prince Alexander of Oldenburg, great-grandson of Paul I. But the prince was not distinguished by outstanding organizational skills or competence in the field of chemistry, although he was acting as the supreme chief of the army's sanitary service. As a result, the Russian army was offered gauze bandages by the commission of General Pavlov, Minsk, the Petrograd Committee of the Union of Cities, the Moscow Committee of the Zemsoyuz, the Mining Institute, Tryndin and many other "figures". Most of them suggested impregnating the gauze with sodium hyposulfite to protect against chlorine, forgetting that the reaction with the war gas caused the release of quite toxic sulfur dioxide. Meanwhile, the Germans on the other side of the front had already introduced a new poison into battle: phosgene, chloropicrin, mustard gas, lewisite, etc.
The genius of Nikolai Dmitrievich Zelinsky was that he realized in time the impossibility of creating a universal neutralizing composition for all types of chemical warfare agents. Even then, he knew about the surviving Russian soldiers who saved themselves by breathing air through the loose earth or tightly wrapping their head in an overcoat. Therefore, it was logical to decide to use the phenomenon of adsorption on the surface of porous substances, that is, to implement the physical principle of neutralization. Charcoal was perfect for this role.
It should be mentioned separately that Nikolai Dmitrievich himself was firsthand familiar with toxic substances. It happened in German Goettengen, when the future great chemist, after graduating from Novorossiysk University, worked under the guidance of Professor V. Meyer. It was a usual foreign internship for those years. The topic of laboratory work was related to the synthesis of thiophene compounds, and at one point, yellow smoke rose over one of the flasks, accompanied by the smell of mustard. Zelinsky bent over the chemical dishes and, losing consciousness, fell to the floor. It turned out that the young chemist had serious poisoning and burns of his lungs. So Zelinsky fell under the destructive effect of dichlorodiethyl sulfide - a powerful poisonous substance that later became part of mustard gas. It was first obtained that day at the Göttingen laboratory, and the Russian scientist became his debut victim. So Nikolai Dmitrievich had personal bills with chemical weapons, and after 30 years he was able to pay them in full.
I must say that not only Zelinsky had the experience of acquaintance with toxic substances. The chemist's associate Sergei Stepanov, who had worked as his assistant for more than 45 years, received a letter from the front in July 1915: “Daddy! If you will not receive letters from me for a long time, inquire about me. The fights are fierce, my hair stands on end … I was given a bandage made of gauze and cotton, soaked in some kind of drug … Once a breeze blew. Well, we think the German will start gas now. And so it happened. We see that a cloudy veil is falling on us. Our officer ordered to put on masks. A commotion began. The masks were dry. There was no water at hand … I had to urinate on it. He put on a mask, nestled to the ground, lay there until the gases dispersed. Many were poisoned, they were tormented by coughing, coughing up blood. What we had! However, some escaped: one buried himself and breathed through the ground, the other wrapped his head in an overcoat and lay motionless, and thus was saved. Be healthy. Write. 5th Army, 2nd Regiment, 3rd Company. Anatoly.
Left: Academician Nikolai Zelinsky and his assistant Sergei Stepanov in 1947. By this time, they had worked together for 45 years. Right: Nikolai Dmitrievich Zelinsky (1861-1953) in 1915, when he invented the "revitalization" of coal and the universal gas mask. Photo from the album of portraits of Zelinsky, published by Moscow State University, 1947. Source: medportal.ru
Zelinsky was a purely civilian scientist. Since 1911, he has been working in Petrograd, where he heads a department at the Polytechnic Institute, and also heads the Central Laboratory of the Ministry of Finance, which oversees the enterprises of the alcoholic beverage industry. In this laboratory, Zelinsky organized the purification of raw alcohol, research on oil refining, catalysis and protein chemistry. It was here that the scientist used activated carbon as an adsorbent to purify alcohol. Activated carbon is unique in its own way - 100 grams of substance (250 cm3) have 2500 billion pores, and the total surface reaches 1.5 km2… For this reason, the adsorption capacity of the substance is very high - 1 volume of beech coal can absorb 90 volumes of ammonia, and coconut coal is already 178.
Zelinsky's first experiments showed that ordinary activated carbon was not suitable for equipping a gas mask and his team had to carry out a cycle of new experimental work. As a result, in the laboratory of the Ministry of Finance in 1915, they developed a method for the manufacture of an adsorbent, which immediately increases its activity by 60%. How was the new substance tested? As usual, scientists did it in those days - on themselves. Such a volume of sulfur was burned in the room that it was impossible to be in an atmosphere of sulfur dioxide without protective equipment. And ND Zelinsky with assistants V. Sadikov and S. Stepanov, entered the room, having previously covered his mouth and nose with handkerchiefs, into which activated carbon was poured abundantly. After being in such extreme conditions for 30 minutes, the testers made sure of the correctness of the chosen path and sent the results to OLDEN. This was the name of the Office of the Sanitary and Evacuation Unit of the Russian Army, which was supervised by the previously mentioned Prince of Oldenburg. But in this institution Zelinsky's proposal was ignored and then he independently reported on the results of his work at a meeting of the Sanitary-technical military in the Solyanoy town of St. Petersburg. Special attention to the scientist's speech was paid by the engineer-technologist of the Triangle plant Edmont Kummant, who later solved the problem of a tight fit of the gas mask to the head of any size. This is how the first prototype of the Zelinsky-Kummant gas mask was born.
A serial copy of the Zelinsky-Kummant gas mask. Source: antikvariat.ru
Further history can be called idiotic with certainty. Prince Oldenburgsky, as it turned out, had a personal dislike for Zelinsky, for he could not stand the liberals. And Nikolai Zelinsky had previously left Moscow State University in protest against the state's policy towards students, which attracted Oldenburgsky's attention. Everything went to the fact that the gas mask would never get to the front, no matter how effective it was.
Testing of the prototype began: first, at the Second City Hospital in Moscow, where it was stated that "taken in sufficient quantities of coal protects against poisoning at concentrations of chlorine - 0.1%, and phosgene - 0.025%". In the fall, they were tested in the Central Laboratory of the Ministry of Finance, in which Zelinsky's son Alexander took part. Numerous tests of effectiveness lasted until the beginning of 1916, and each time the commissions stated: "The mask of engineer Kummant in conjunction with the Zelinsky respirator is the simplest and best of the available gas masks." But Oldenburgsky was adamant, and Russian soldiers continued to die from the German poison at the front.
The final tests were an experiment at headquarters at the headquarters of the Supreme Commander, during which Sergei Stepanov spent an entire hour and a half in a chamber with poison gas. Suddenly, a couple of minutes before the end of the experiment, the headquarters officer entered the office and told Zelinsky that his gas mask had been adopted by the personal order of Nicholas II. What was the reason for this step? 16 thousand lives, which the Russian army on the eve gave at the front between Riga and Vilna during the gas attack. All the victims were wearing gauze masks of the Mining Institute …
11,185,750 gas masks were delivered to the army by the end of 1916, which reduced the losses from toxic substances to 0.5%. Sergey Stepanov sent the copy No. 1 from the serial batch to the front to his son Anatoly.
