Book contents
- The Gas Mask in Interwar Germany
- Science in History
- The Gas Mask in Interwar Germany
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The Structures of Violence: Fritz Haber and the Institutionalization of Gas Warfare
- 2 The Man in the Rubber Mask: World War I and the Development of the Modern Gas Mask
- 3 The First “Chemical Subjects”: Soldier Encounters with the Gas Mask in World War I
- 4 The Limits of Sympathy: The Medical Treatment of Poison Gas during and after World War I
- 5 Atmos(fears): The Poison Gas Debates in the Weimar Republic
- 6 Technologies of Fate: Cultural and Intellectual Prophesies of the Future Gas War
- 7 Synthesizing the “Nazi Chemical Subject”: Gas Masks, Personal Armoring, and Vestiary Discipline in the Third Reich
- 8 Prophets of Poison: Industrialized Murder in the Gas Chambers of the Holocaust
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - The Limits of Sympathy: The Medical Treatment of Poison Gas during and after World War I
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 May 2023
- The Gas Mask in Interwar Germany
- Science in History
- The Gas Mask in Interwar Germany
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The Structures of Violence: Fritz Haber and the Institutionalization of Gas Warfare
- 2 The Man in the Rubber Mask: World War I and the Development of the Modern Gas Mask
- 3 The First “Chemical Subjects”: Soldier Encounters with the Gas Mask in World War I
- 4 The Limits of Sympathy: The Medical Treatment of Poison Gas during and after World War I
- 5 Atmos(fears): The Poison Gas Debates in the Weimar Republic
- 6 Technologies of Fate: Cultural and Intellectual Prophesies of the Future Gas War
- 7 Synthesizing the “Nazi Chemical Subject”: Gas Masks, Personal Armoring, and Vestiary Discipline in the Third Reich
- 8 Prophets of Poison: Industrialized Murder in the Gas Chambers of the Holocaust
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The fourth chapter examines how German military doctors attempted to treat the injuries caused by poison gas. World War I medical professionals often downplayed reports of gassing by claiming that the affected men had predispositions to pulmonary illness or constitutional weakness. Furthermore, many physicians and psychologists saw what was then termed “gas-neurosis,” or psychological discomfort stemming from poison gas exposure, as an affront to both their concept of German masculinity and national health. Due to both this cultural commitment and a lack of knowledge regarding poison gas exposure, doctors tended to dismiss gas symptoms such as chronic coughing, dizziness, lung inflammation, insomnia, and hallucinations that could develop years after initial exposure. Much like the scientists who had developed poison gas at Fritz Haber’s Institute, most German physicians continued to view the weapon as something that could be controlled and treated with the proper application of scientific and medical knowledge.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Gas Mask in Interwar GermanyVisions of Chemical Modernity, pp. 105 - 131Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023