Dew of Death: The Story of Lewisite, America's World War I Weapon of Mass Destruction (review)

This work is an examination of the origin, evolution, and lasting impact of lewisite, a weaponized arsenic compound developed in the United States during World War I and subsequently utilized as a major chemical agent worldwide to the present day. While breaking little new ground for historians, the book nonetheless adds to a growing body of scholarly and popular literature addressing what are often termed "Weapons of Mass Destruction," or WMD.

Like its subject, Dew of Death has an unusual origin. Dr. Vilensky is neither historian nor chemist, but a professor of anatomy and cell biology at Indiana University's School of Medicine. Dew of Death is really his extensive report on what he discovered while tracking down the background of a chemical compound known as British Anti-Lewisite (BAL). BAL is significant as a cure for Wilson's disease, a rare neurological disorder caused by a chemical imbalance and, until 1951, untreatable. BAL subsequently became one of the major chelating agents for countering metal poisoning, including lead and copper. Vilensky wondered what the lewisite was that brought an anti-lewisite into being.

The resulting work, clearly written and a pleasure to read, begins with the origins of the compound in the laboratories of Catholic University and the wartime American University Experimental Station in Washington, D.C. Named for its developer, Winford Lee Lewis (though discovered by Father Julius Nieuwland), lewisite did not reach the front before the war ended in November 1918. Vilensky tracks the compound through its production at a plant outside of Cleveland, beyond the war as a hyped up "superweapon," and into World War Two, when tons were manufactured and British researchers developed the antidote. Across the twentieth century production was not easy, nor always safe, but the chemistry behind it was generally known publicly. One engaging subtheme in the book is the paradox between the suppression of knowledge about lewisite for security reasons and the ease the author had in finding the same material from published sources. Vilensky concludes the work with analyses of the lingering effects of lewisite in the environment and the continuing concern over its proliferation to undesirable actors.

What sets this study apart from most historical works on these subjects is the extensive, expert chemical and medical information that Vilensky so clearly conveys. By explaining how lewisite works, and how it and other chemical weapons harm humans, he places the weapon in a better context for understanding how and why it and others were rarely used. Nonspecialist readers will find these sections both authoritative and helpful.

This book is also frustrating. To his credit, Vilensky cites most of the major secondary literature on chemical warfare. It is not clear, however, how well he used the relevant archival material (such as U.S. National Archives Record Group 175) and his (or the press's) decision to abbreviate the citations for primary source material make it all but impossible to use his archival discoveries for further research. But that was not Vilensky's aim. He found what he was looking for, and we are the richer for it.