![]() ![]() This newfound knowledge spurred Americans to set up local collection points to gather the peach pits. “Good charcoal will absorb as much as five hundred times its bulk of some gases,” according to National School Services, Volume 1. “Save Fruit Pits and Save Lives,” shouted a headline in the October 28, 1918, edition of the Temple Daily Telegram. Army issued a call for Americans to save fruit pits. “Cleaned, dried, and then subjected to a high temperature … the stones become carbonized, and the coal, in granulated form, is used as an absorbent in the manufacture of gas masks.”ĭuring the final year of the war, the Gas Defense Division of the Chemical Warfare Service of the U.S. “It has been found that the coal from the shells of certain seeds and nuts, among them cocoanuts, chestnuts and horse chestnuts, as well as peach stones, has a much greater power of absorbing poisonous gases than ordinary charcoal from wood,” Popular Science Monthly reported in December 1918. Scientists continued to test new filtering processes, and gas mask manufacturers soon discovered a more effective replacement for the wood charcoal originally used. The masks were effective, even though the rubberized canvas faces were hot and restrictive and made the soldiers look like an army of mutant insects. These contraptions allowed the wearer to breathe through a fiber hose attached to a charcoal filter designed to capture gases. Gas masks were issued to American soldiers at the front. Later, phosgene and mustard gases were introduced. ![]() World War I was the first conflict to employ the use of poisonous gases-initially chlorine, a yellow-green gas that drifted across the battlefield, causing death by asphyxiation. Yes, these lowly fruit seeds, so plentiful in Texas, played a vital role in protecting Allied soldiers from poisonous gas. ![]() Those who didn’t go overseas to fight joined the war effort at home, raising homing pigeons destined for the front lines, making bandages for the Red Cross and collecting peach pits. A flood of patriotic Texans donned uniforms and leaped into the fray nearly 100 years ago when the U.S. ![]()
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