The 1947 Commission médicale de défense contre la guerre moderne
Résumé
In the context following the end of the Second World War and the Libération, a high value was given to civilian input in military affairs in France. Many members of the most prestigious national academic institutions (including Institut de France, Académie nationale de médecine, Collège de France, Ecole polytechnique, Institut Pasteur, Ecole vétérinaire d’Alfort, Institut du radium, Institut national d’hygiène, Institut du cancer) were given the unprecedented opportunity to contribute to future military endeavours regarding biological, chemical and nuclear warfare, through a new pluralistic commission. This 1947 Commission médicale de défense contre la guerre moderne was a scientific commission, defining its agenda, under the supervision of the Ministère des armées. Its mission was to understand how to prevent and cure lesions or disorders caused by the then new atomic, chemical and biological weapons. On the basis of first hand archival materials from Institut Pasteur and from the French Ministry of Defence, we shall focus on the achievements of the subcommissions dedicated to research on biolog- ical and chemical weapons, and will examine the extent to which the expected military and civilian outcomes of this explicitly dual research program, have been effective. Noting that the German military had discovered nerve gases through earlier research on insecticides, and that the English military had found remedies against arsenical and mercurial intoxications through earlier research on vesicants, the French military gave these subcommissions the mission to explore a wide range of chemical substances and biological agents, and their potential effects on human health, but also on crops or animals. These activities did to some extent contribute, on the civilian side, to improve public health (in particular vaccination) and agriculture (through the improvement of insecticides and herbicides).
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