How A Brigade Of Slugs Saved Lives In WWI

According to Smithsonian Institution Archives, what malacologist Bartsch observed in his furnace room were visible signals of distress from the slugs as they detected fumes from the gas furnace. To quote Bartsch's research directly, he stated in "Researches on Fungi, Volume 2," "The sense of smell in slugs, like that in dogs, is doubtless more acute than in human beings" (via Google Books).

Bartsch's observation notes specifically noted a slugs' sensitivity to mustard gas, the toxic fumes of which were being used for the first time during WW1 (per The National WWI Museum and Memorial). By the end of the war, Germany alone had produced 68,000 tons of mustard gas toxin which caused enemy soldiers to choke, convulse, and in some cases, collapse into violent deaths. With no known weapons to combat the odorless, invisible chemical, the United States government resorted to desperate measures by calling in a brigade of slugs.

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