Zelinsky's first gas mask. The main historical facts of the invention of the world's first gas masks. History of defense: military and peaceful

Nikolai Dmitrievich Zelinsky was born in 1861 in Tiraspol, into a noble family. Parents, first the father, and soon the mother, died of fleeting consumption. Left in the care of his grandmother, Nikolai graduated from the district school in his native city, then the famous Richelieu gymnasium in Odessa. In 1880, Zelinsky entered the Novorossiysk University, in 1888 he passed the master's exam, defended his master's and doctoral (in 1891) dissertations. After N. D. Zelinsky was sent to Germany as a scholarship holder of the faculty.

The laboratories of Johannes Wislicenus in Leipzig and Viktor Meyer in Göttingen were chosen for the internship, where much attention was paid to theoretical organic chemistry and the phenomena of isomerism and stereochemistry. Shortly before Zelinsky's arrival, Meyer discovered thiophene and suggested that Nikolai Dmitrievich carry out the synthesis of tetrahydrothiophene. However, it turned out that the intermediate product (dichlorodiethyl sulfide) is a substance that has a very strong effect on the skin, N. D. Zelinsky received a rather severe injury and had to lie in the hospital for several months.

“Following the path of such a synthesis, I prepared an intermediate product - dichlorodiethyl sulfide, which turned out to be a strong poison, from which I suffered severely, having received burns of my hands and body,” Zelinsky wrote in his memoirs.

The Germans took advantage of Zelinsky's discovery during the First World War, using dichlorodiethyl sulfide as a skin blister poison, called mustard gas.

From 1893 until his death in 1953, Nikolai Dmitrievich Zelinsky was a professor at Moscow University.

Oil cracking, activated carbon and gas mask

The scientific activity of Nikolai Zelinsky was wide and varied, but one of its main areas was the search for oxide catalysts in oil cracking. In particular, Zelinsky proposed a method to improve the reaction of the catalytic compaction of acetylene into benzene using activated carbon as a catalyst.

Around this time, in 1915, Zelinsky carried out work on adsorption and the creation of a carbon gas mask, which was adopted during the First World War by the Russian and allied armies and saved many lives.

On the mask of a gas mask, a characteristic horn attracts attention: there is an army myth that says that it is necessary in order "so that the cap does not slip." In fact, its purpose, by passing a finger inside the mask, is to wipe the glass from the inside.

It must be admitted that Zelinsky was not the first to discover the ability of charcoal to absorb chlorine, hydrogen sulfide and ammonia vapors from the air. This was done in 1854 by the Scottish chemist John Stenghaus, who developed a respirator, which is a mask that covers a person’s face from the bridge of the nose to the chin. Charcoal powder was placed in the space between two hemispheres formed by a copper wire mesh. Stenghaus charcoal filters were only one of the alternatives and were not widely used before Zelinsky's work.

The first to propose the use of birch charcoal, taken from the fireplace, activated by calcination, for cleaning chemical solutions, drinking water, to remove fusel oils from vodka and to protect meat from rotting, was Toviy Yegorovich, aka Johann Tobias Lovitz. Lovitz, who was born in Göttingen and came to Russia as a child, enjoyed the special favor of Mikhail Lomonosov, was in charge of the Main Pharmacy in St. Petersburg, and was elected an academician at the end of his life. Russian Academy Sciences.

Gas masks of the second half of the 19th century were improved from model to model, until in 1879 the American Hutson Hard proposed a gas mask in the form of a mask made of vulcanized rubber.

Hard's filtering bowl mask (1879)

However, neither Hard nor the German chemist and inventor Bernhard Lab used activated carbon as a filter or used it only as an aid. The sorbent properties of charcoal were remembered in 1909 by the American Samuel Danilevich. The filter box of his gas mask, like that of the British James Scott, was filled with charcoal. True, in addition to coal, the inventors used other filters.

Zelinsky's priority is that Nikolai Dmitrievich used not just charcoal, but activated charcoal (its production was first established in Germany), that is, prepared in a special way, with increased adsorption capacity: the total surface of the pores of one cubic centimeter of activated carbon can have an area of ​​up to 1500 square meters. meters.

Activated carbon granules and their appearance at a magnification of 300 times.

In addition, Zelinsky attracted Edmond Kummant, a process engineer at the Triangle plant, to work.

In combat conditions, even the penetration of a small amount of a poisonous substance, due to the loose fit of the gas mask to the skin of the face, became fatal. Edmond Kummant solved the problem of “fitting the mask”, and his name quite deservedly went down in history as the name of a full-fledged co-inventor of the gas mask. The originality of the Kummant mask was also recognized by the fact that in 1918 the British Patent Office granted him patent No. 19587 for a gas mask.

Zelinsky-Kummant gas mask

The Zelinsky-Kummant gas mask was tested under the guidance of a student of Professor Zelinsky Nikolai Shilov. Shilov conducted tests in combat conditions, and made several important proposals (for example, the layered design of the carbon filter), which made it possible to improve the original design. Under the leadership of Shilov, mobile laboratories for testing gas masks and special courses for training personnel were organized. At the same time, Shilov also carried out, so to speak, work in the opposite direction - he created an original device for spraying chemical poisonous substances.

Guidance on the use of a gas mask

Over 11 million Zelinsky gas masks were produced for the Russian army in 1916-1917, although the entire Russian army numbered only 6.5 million people. Russian troops were fully provided with Zelinsky-Kummant gas masks. The effectiveness of German gas balloon attacks decreased so much that they were stopped on the Russian front already in January 1917.

Zelinsky's gas mask was far ahead of both French and British gas masks.

So, the French gas mask of Jules Tissot assumed the location of a respiratory box weighing more than four kilograms on the back, Tissot used caustic soda mixed with metal filings, wood wool soaked in castor oil, soap and glycerin as absorbers.

Tissot gas mask

Most modern Western researchers of personal chemical protection consider that the British gas mask of 1916 has its predecessor in the modern gas mask. In fact, this is so. Moreover, its modification in 1918 gave grounds to recognize the British gas mask as the best in the First World War. On its basis, all subsequent models were subsequently designed, including models of Soviet gas masks. This is about a quality mask.

British gas mask model 1915/16.

It is only necessary to take into account that neither French nor British chemists at the time of the creation of the Zelinsky-Kummant gas mask knew anything about the possibility of using activated carbon to absorb gaseous and vaporous toxic substances of various chemical nature. At the request of the British command of the Russian General Staff, on February 27, 1916, 5 Zelinsky-Kummant gas masks were sent to London for research. British chemists did not believe that activated birch charcoal could be a good remedy. When they were convinced of the opposite, it turned out that in England there is no technology for obtaining high-quality activated carbon. At that time, the technology for activating charcoal was also transferred.

At the origins of aviation fuel

By this time, Professor Nikolai Zelinsky was no longer engaged in gas masks. In 1918–1919, he developed an original method for producing gasoline by cracking diesel oil and petroleum in the presence of aluminum chloride and bromide, setting scientific basis high-performance production of aviation fuel. Developing this topic, Zelinsky managed to improve the quality of aviation gasoline.

The new gasoline made it possible to dramatically increase the power of engines and the speed of aircraft. The aircraft was able to take off with a smaller takeoff run, climb to a greater height with a significant load. These studies provided during the Great Patriotic War invaluable assistance to our aviation. For work on organic chemistry of oil and catalytic transformations of hydrocarbons, Academician Zelinsky was awarded the State Prize in 1946.

It is immoral to profit from human misery

Zelinsky fundamentally did not want to patent his gas mask, believing that it is immoral to profit from human misfortunes. Perhaps this also happened because Zelinsky felt his own responsibility for these misfortunes. After all, Nikolai Dmitrievich was the first to develop the principles industrial production chloropicrin, which was used in the First World War as an auxiliary poisonous substance.

The merits of N. D. Zelinsky to science and to the Motherland are widely recognized in our country. In 1929, N. D. Zelinsky was elected an academician. He was awarded the title of Honored Scientist and Hero of Socialist Labor; he was awarded 4 Orders of Lenin and 2 Orders of the Red Banner of Labor; He is a laureate of the Stalin Prize three times.

The ascetic and very energetic person, who firmly believed in the power of science, together with V.I. Vernadsky, in 1941, through the Royal and Linnean Society, addressed a letter to British scientists with the expression “confidence that the union of science and culture of the two great states will in every possible way promote the speedy destruction of Hitlerism.

Commemorative postage stamp of Moldova, dedicated to the great native of Tiraspol.

The great Russian scientist D. I. Mendeleev wrote many years ago about three services that any outstanding scientist does in the name of the Motherland: the first of them is a scientific feat, the second is activity in the pedagogical field, the third is to promote the development of domestic industry. According to this covenant, Nikolai Dmitrievich Zelinsky performed all three services to the Motherland.

The Russian Academy of Sciences established the Zelinsky Prize in 1961. It is awarded for outstanding work in the field of organic chemistry and petroleum chemistry.

The FIZ Association (ASIZ) established the Zelinsky medal: the work of the academician continues to live actively and creatively. In addition, ASIZ helps to contain

Exactly one hundred years ago, on March 16, 1916, the Naroch operation began on the territory of Belarus - one of the largest offensive operations Russian troops during the First World War. Generally the first World War became, perhaps, the first terrible war of the XX century. It was the first to use long-range artillery, tanks, aircraft and weapons of mass destruction - shells with chemical gases.

And yet - during the First World War, for the first time in history, photo reports from the battlefields began to appear. Newspapers published bravura photographs of parades and victories, and soldiers and simple field reporters brought in their cameras the terrible trench truth - typhoid trenches half-filled with water, rusty rows of barbed wire with the bodies of dead soldiers, entire ranks of dead soldiers mowed down by machine-gun fire ... Perhaps , these terrible shots became the impetus for the realization that war is an abnormal state for mankind, and in Europe all wars stopped after a few decades.

So, in today's post - rare and terrible photographs of the First World War.

02. German detachment in gas masks (then called "gas masks") and with hand grenades in their hands. Photo taken April 23, 1916.

03. British troops during the attack. The British had interestingly shaped helmets that survived into World War II.

04. Equipment from the First World War - a device for some kind of military wiretapping. Apparently, it was used in reconnaissance and surveillance.

05. A gas mask of an unusual design, with branch pipes extending into a shoulder pack. I will assume that this is a prototype of modern instrumentation - gas masks with a closed breathing cycle and its own supply of oxygen, which are used, for example, by firefighters when working in heavily smoky rooms.

06. In general, the gas mask became one of the symbols of the First World War - during it, for the first time, terrible chemical weapons began to be massively used. The troops, who stood in fortified positions, were fired upon by gas shells with mustard gas, after which heavy gas fell into the trenches in green clouds, killing people en masse ... In the photo - Russian troops in gas masks.

07. Since then, the image of a man in a gas mask, more like some kind of semi-technical creature, has become associated with death and war.

08. Machine-gun crew in gas masks, photo from the Eastern Front.

09. A rare photograph - a gas weapon in action. In the foreground, we see two German soldiers wearing gas masks, and in the back, thick clouds of poisonous gas.

10. Gas masks of those years were very unreliable. They look more like some desperate attempt to protect themselves from terrible gas clouds than real reliable protection.

11. A terrible photo - a French orderly holds the body of a German soldier who died in a gas attack. The gas mask did not help him ...

12. French soldier wearing a gas mask.

13. Trench life of French soldiers. A long deep trench, mud, cold, gruel from a pot. In such conditions, people often sat for months.

14. More trenches, in the warmer season.

15. French troops during the battle, photo taken in 1916.

16. British troops with a tank.

17. German machine gun crew. Everyone is wearing gas masks, there is a risk of a gas attack.

18. Trenches...

19. French cavalry cuirassiers help a wounded comrade.

20. German assault troops on the front line, 1917. Stormtroopers usually recruited motivated volunteers, arming and supplying them better than simple "trench" troops.

21. A rare photograph showing the "work" of a German flamethrower. There were two flamethrowers - one carried a tank of compressed nitrogen, and the second directed the hose. The flamethrower was a terrible psychological weapon, from the mere sight of which the soldiers of the opposing side fled in all directions.

22. The result of the "work" of the flamethrower is a burned British tank ...

23. British soldiers during the assault on a German bunker.

24. Letter home from the trenches.

25. Trench...

26. A soldier who died during the attack ...

27. "Descendants, take care of the world."

29.11.2011 - 17:37

The history of the development of mankind is inextricably linked with the improvement of tools for the destruction of their own kind. But, as any action gives rise to a reaction, so in response to a new weapon, new means of protection appeared: they covered themselves from the sword with a shield, in order to protect themselves from arrows - they put on chain mail. And at the beginning of the twentieth century, mankind faced the task of saving their lives from a new scourge.

Gas attacks

On April 22, 1915, it was first used in military operations. “In the evening, a yellowish-gray cloud rose from the side of the German trenches near the Ypres River, which was carried by a fair wind to the positions of the Allied troops. For the French and British soldiers on the defensive, this gas caused an excruciating cough and suffocation. Following the cloud, the German infantry moved and, having easily broken through the defenses, took possession of significant trophies.

Having fallen under the influence of a gas cloud, the soldiers tried to flee, but only a few managed to avoid severe poisoning. Of the 15,000 soldiers exposed to the gas, 5,000 died the same night." Messages of this content were published in Russian newspapers. And a month later, a similar tragedy broke out already on the Russian front: near Warsaw, about 9 thousand soldiers and officers were subjected to the action of asphyxiating gases, of which more than two thousand died in the next day.

In this difficult time for the country, Nikolai Dmitrievich Zelinsky, an outstanding domestic chemist, known for his work in the field of the oil industry, worked in Petrograd in the Central Laboratory of the Ministry of Finance. It was he who had to develop a means of protection against a new terrible weapon of mass destruction.

old acquaintances

Zelinsky's first acquaintance with toxic substances took place long before the tragic events at Ypres. In 1885, N. D. Zelinsky, a young scholarship holder of the Faculty of Chemistry of the Novorossiysk University, was sent to Professor Meyer for a two-year foreign internship in Göttingen. The young scientist was assigned to work on the synthesis of one of the previously unknown organic compounds.

That Saturday evening, Zelinsky was the only one of the trainees who lingered in the laboratory. When the components of the experiment were just introduced into the flask, contrary to expectations, a stormy chemical reaction. A yellowish haze appeared above the flask, and a strange smell, reminiscent of mustard, spread throughout the room. The experimenter leaned over the flask, wanting to take a closer look, but from a sudden suffocation that seized him, losing consciousness, he fell to the floor. Luckily for him, Franz, the laboratory attendant, still remained at his workplace and correctly assessed the situation: he pulled Zelinsky out of the laboratory, slammed the door, and, barely having time to call for help, he himself lost consciousness.

The doctor who examined the victim stated severe poisoning, damage to the respiratory tract and severe burns to the hands. So the discoverer of dichlorodiethyl sulfide, later called mustard gas, almost became his first victim.

Letter from the front

Already after the first report on the use of poisonous gases, Zelinsky and his laboratory staff, without any instructions from above, began to find means of protecting soldiers from the effects of chemical weapons.

In addition to patriotic feelings, they were guided by the realization that the gauze bandages sewn by nuns and college girls, even soaked in various chemical compounds, could not serve as any kind of reliable protection.

Not only did they not act when dry, but they also had a selective action: the mask, which protected against the action of chlorine, was powerless against hydrocyanic acid. But chemists know dozens of other toxic substances that can be used for gas attacks!

Among other parents who were looking forward to news from the front was Zelinsky's colleague S. S. Stepanov. With a letter from his son Anatoly, he entered one morning into the office of his boss. Among other things, Anatoly reported on another gas attack, which he managed to survive: “Many were poisoned, they were tormented by coughing, spitting up blood. However, some escaped: one dug in and breathed through the ground, the other wrapped his overcoat around his head and lay down motionless, and that was how he escaped.

This letter prompted Zelinsky to the idea that the mask should be based not on the principle of chemical binding of poisons, but on a physicochemical process. What was needed was a substance with a high absorbing capacity, while being indifferent to the chemical nature of the gas. A universal absorber was needed.

First tests

And such an absorber was found! I recalled the work on the purification of raw alcohol with coal: denaturing substances were of a very different nature, but almost without exception, they were absorbed by charcoal.

And the work began to boil: all the laboratory staff went black from head to toe from coal dust. Checked the ability various kinds coals to absorb gases, looking for ways to increase the absorption capacity - activation methods. Coal was calcined, sorted, crushed, sieved, weighed, poisoned and weighed again. And the results of this hard work were not long in coming.

The laboratory staff conducted the first tests on themselves. Zelinsky, Stepanov and Sadikov entered the room filled with sulfur dioxide, pressing handkerchiefs with calcined birch charcoal to their mouths and noses. The test ended in thirty-two minutes: three subjects emerged from the makeshift gas chamber, shaking coal out of handkerchiefs.

Zelinsky immediately sent the results of his research to the Directorate of the Sanitary and Evacuation Unit.

Having received no response from the Directorate, he made the first public announcement of his experiments at a meeting of the Sanitary and Technical Department of the Russian technical society. The report was approved, but much still needed to be finalized: how much coal would be needed to protect one person, what was the design of the gas mask. The chemical laboratory could not give answers to these questions.

After another gas attack, many soldiers and officers died, the survivors hung useless masks on the trees. The unsuitability of the masks became obvious, but their replacement should have come from the Directorate of the Sanitary and Evacuation Unit, and not from some Zelinsky.

A competition was announced: the Corps of Pages, monasteries, various departments, cities and individuals sent their projects and gas masks for testing. The first approved sample was a gas mask based on a mountain rescue mask developed at the Mining Institute. The option turned out to be not the most successful, and this almost ruined Zelinsky's priceless invention.

After several successful tests, a failure occurred: the subject was taken out of the experimental chamber in an unconscious state. Further tests were abandoned, although the reason for the failure was soon discovered: the mask was ill-fitting and did not fit tightly to the head.

The situation was saved by Professor Shaternikov. He himself entered the test chamber with a combat concentration of asphyxiating gases, where he spent more than 40 minutes playing chess with another tester, engineer Degtyarev. Both were wearing masks designed by Shaternikov with Zelinsky's carbon respirator. In this way, carbon filter was rehabilitated, but complete victory was still far away.

Gas mask of Prince of Oldenburg

Final decision on this issue depended on the head of the department, Prince Oldenburgsky, who, contrary to common sense, rejected Zelinsky's invention only because of the latter's allegedly "undermined" reputation. After the student unrest of 1911 in Moscow, Zelinsky, along with other progressive-minded professors, was forced to submit a letter of resignation and leave the department of Moscow University, and then the capital. The head of the Directorate of the Sanitary and Evacuation Department could not yield to the introduction of a much-needed invention to a person with such a "tarnished" reputation. A sample of the Mining Institute was launched into production, renamed the gas mask of the Prince of Oldenburg.

But life put everything in its place. At the front, these masks could not compete with Zelinsky's universal gas mask. The report put an end to the opposition: “On the front between Riga and Vilna, 16,000 soldiers died during a gas attack. The warriors were equipped with bad masks. There were three types of masks from the Mining Institute.”

After that, a special meeting on defense decided to withdraw all masks, except for Zelinsky's gas mask. By the end of 1916, all military units were provided with these gas masks, and the losses of Russian troops from gas attacks began to be only random.

Almost 100 years have passed since then, but the invention of our compatriot continues to carry out its difficult service.

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The beginning of the use of "stink bombs" or chemical weapons in hostilities is associated with the German attack near Ypres in 1915. Then 170 tons of chlorine were released, up to 15 thousand people suffered, about 5 thousand soldiers of the French army died. The invention of a universal weapon, which rightfully belongs to Russia, is also connected with the First World War. This is Zelinsky's gas mask. The operating principle and birch activated charcoal have been protecting a generation of Russian soldiers and continue to save lives not only in war, but also in peacetime.

Priority issues

Questions of historical heritage and pioneering are open today. After all, the professor and inventor of the gas mask Dmitrievich (1861 - 1953) considered it immoral to protect a patent for his invention, because it was he who developed the method of spraying chloropicrin, one of the poisonous substances of the imperialist war. And if in the middle of the 20th century the question of the primacy of the gas mask behind the Russian invention (gas mask Zelinsky - Kummant ) was purely ideological, today it has acquired academic significance. And whether to consider the Venetian suit against the plague as a prototype of a gas mask is a purely rhetorical question.

History of defense: military and peaceful

There is evidence that the miners of ancient Greece used filter masks made from dried herbs. Arab brothers Banu Musa, prominent scientists of Baghdad of the 4th century, to prevent poisoning of workers when digging wells. They invented a technical device very similar to a gas mask. It was a stitched mask, with the possibility of replacing the filter. And although they were also made from dried herbs, they were quite similar to modern chemical defenses.

In the Middle Ages, with the advent of mass epidemics of the plague and the development of the doctrine of miasma (a substance hostile to humans) and contagia (poisonous particles transmitted through the skin and through breathing), a Venetian anti-plague kit appeared. This is a cloak and gloves soaked in tar, and a “beak”, inside of which there were vegetable filters.

In 1799, Alexander von Humboldt's gas mask appeared, designed to filter and purify mine gases and protect miners.

But the first patent for a gas mask was issued to Lewis Haslett in 1849 in Kentucky, USA. The device was intended for miners, a dense woolen cloth served as a filter, and valve breathing was provided.

When gilding the domes of St. Isaac's Cathedral in 1838 in St. Petersburg, 60 craftsmen died, they were not saved by gas masks. They were made of glass with a hose and were supposed to be protected from mercury vapor. But the design was not hermetic, which caused the poisoning of workers.

Coal as an adsorbent

John Stenhaus in 1854 invented a respirator in which charcoal became the main adsorbent. It was a two-layer mask, between the layers of which there was a sorbent - charcoal powder.

An associate of Mikhail Lomonosov, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Johann Tobias Lovitz proposed the use of birch charcoal to purify water and protect meat from rotting.

Zelinsky's merit is that he was the first to use activated carbon as an absorber - coal with an increased adsorption capacity. Specially prepared coal has up to 1500 sq. meters of porous surface per 1 cubic centimeter.

Adsorbent plus tightness equals Zelinsky's gas mask

The history of the creation of this means of chemical protection is connected with another name, which rightfully became the second in the name of a gas mask - Emond Kummant, a technologist at the Triangle plant.

The British Patent Office granted Emond Kummant a patent for the original mask he invented. It was the mask, tightly and hermetically attached to the skin of the face, that saved from the slightest hit of toxic substances on the skin.

Positional imperialist war forced the opponents to look for methods of conducting military operations with the use of poisonous substances. The main task was to find protection, including universal filters and a reliable protective mask. The gas mask in question became such a means of protection.

Gas mask Zelinsky: structure

There were three prototypes - Petrograd, Moscow and government.

The first, in 1915, entered service with a gas mask of the Petrograd type. The helmet was put on a rectangular gas mask box with two bottoms, box size 200:80:50 millimeters. The bottom bottom with a neck was closed with a cork stopper, the same neck, but higher, was soldered into the top. Between them was a metal mesh with a layer of gauze on both sides. Between the gauze pads was placed 3-6 mm granular activated carbon. The volume of the filter was 700 cubic meters. centimeters, length - 174 mm. The box was protected by a cap made of tin. The mask was orange, the box was fastened with a braid.

The Moscow example entered service in 1916 and was smaller with an oval-shaped box. The volume of the carbon filter has become 1000 cubic centimeters.

However, testing showed the need for improvement. And a third version of the Zelinsky gas mask appeared - such as the State Gas Mask Plant. It was somewhat shorter than the previous one, with an elliptical box.

Approbation of the device

In the Russian army, the Zelinsky-Kummant gas mask appeared in the winter of 2016. During the two years of the war, Russia produced more than 11 million pieces of these protective equipment.

Approbation of the Zelinsky gas mask took place in the combat conditions of the First World War. The tests were supervised by a student of N. D. Zelinsky Nikolai Shilov. It was he who suggested to the professor a multilayer carbon filter. He also owns analytical work to test the effectiveness of chemical protection in mobile laboratories, as well as the organization of schools for the personnel of the Russian army, where they trained in the use of protective equipment - Zelinsky's gas mask. History has proven the importance of these schools and the lack of attention to them from the command.

Advantages and disadvantages

The possibility of air purification from various toxic substances and the discovery of an ideal adsorbent are unconditional discoveries made by Professor N. D. Zelinsky. The gas mask of his invention at the time of its appearance had no analogues in terms of adsorbing substance. The new type of filter of this Russian gas mask was not very convenient, but effective.

Zelinsky's first gas mask also had its drawbacks. These include the following:

Gas masks of that war

The countries participating in the imperialist war did not stand aside from attempts to improve the means of chemical protection. The French gas mask of Jules Tissot, for example, weighed more than four kilograms, the box was located on the back, and caustic soda mixed with wood wool and metal filings acted as an absorber. All this was soaked in soap, glycerin and castor oil.

Today, the prototype of the modern gas mask is considered to be the British gas mask of the First World War model. In appearance, it really is most similar to its modern counterpart. But neither the British, nor the French, nor the Germans used activated carbon as an absorber. Russia's allies, the British, in 1916 asked to send them five Zelinsky-Kummant gas masks for study. British chemists did not believe in adsorbing properties. But even after testing the operation of these devices, the Allies could not surpass Professor Zelinsky.

It is also interesting that protective equipment was also developed for horses. It looked very interesting.

What did the professor get for his invention

Chemical Committee Russian empire filed a petition to the Special Meeting to reward the professor for his invention, which saved thousands of lives. However, the matter never ended. Professor Zelinsky did not receive a single ruble from the Russian government for Zelinsky's gas mask. The story of a professor who did not receive a patent for his unique carbon filter, and refused a nomination for Nobel Prize so it ended. But his co-author, the author of the patented mask, E. Kummant signed an agreement with the Triangle factory and received 50 kopecks for each item sent to the military-industrial committee of Russia. Zelinsky's gas mask made Emond Kummant a millionaire.

It is noteworthy that in Russia there is not a single monument to Professor N.D. Zelinsky, although an institute in St. Pererburg is named after him.

It is positioned that the creation of gas masks began with the introduction of chemical warfare agents into service. This is an erroneous statement. First of all, means of protection were invented for peaceful purposes, and only after they were used in war. The protection of doctors and medical staff, the use to protect workers who come into contact with harmful substances - these are the main priorities of any scientific activity.

The Museum of Artillery in St. Petersburg is a huge complex. To be honest, I have never completely bypassed all of his expositions. In fact, this is practically impossible, since its contents are constantly changing. I am interested in small exhibitions that tell about unknown facts of military history.

Such a fact of Russian history for me was the emergence of the “Russian gas mask”. It turns out that the Zelinsky-Kummant gas mask, this is the first gas mask in history capable of absorbing the widest range of poisonous substances, was developed by the Russian professor N. D. Zelinsky and the technologist of the Triangle plant M. I. Kummant in 1915.

Then this model was improved by I. D. Avalov and put into mass production. For the army, 1 million copies were immediately ordered. This significantly changed the situation at the front.

After the use of the Russian model of a gas mask by the Russian army in the First World War, losses from gas attacks decreased significantly.

By the way, at first the soldiers used "wet masks" impregnated with special substances, and sometimes even with their own urine. But such impregnations helped only from a certain, too narrow range of gases. By 1915, there were several dozen different formulations in use.

Chemists were faced with the task of finding a universal adsorbent with a high absorption capacity. The Germans used diatomaceous earth with pumice, a mixture of slaked lime and caustic soda.

The solution of the Russian professor is ingeniously simple, he suggested using activated birch or linden charcoal. By the way, already in the summer of 1916, several hundred thousand soldiers were fumigated, and in total the army received 5,030,660 gas masks. And since the spring of 1917, the entire army has used only them. One can only guess how many of them he saved the life.

As a result, the use of this particular technology made chemical weapons ineffective.
I learned all this from a small exhibition at the Artillery Museum dedicated to the 155th anniversary of the birth of Nikolai Dmitrievich Zelinsky and his brilliant invention. I can say for sure that this was also my discovery.