White Cross (Weisskreuz) is a World War I chemical warfare agent consisting of one or more lachrymatory agents: bromoacetone (BA), bromobenzyl cyanide (Camite), bromomethyl ethyl ketone (homomartonite, Bn-stoff), chloroacetone (Tonite, A-stoff), ethyl bromoacetate, and/or xylyl bromide.
During World war I, White Cross was also a generic code name used by the German Army for artillery shells with an irritant chemical payload affecting the eyes and mucous membranes.
Famous quotes containing the words white and/or cross:
“While the white man keeps the impetus of his own proud, onward march, the dark races will yield and serve, perforce. But let the white man once have a misgiving about his own leadership, and the dark races will at once attack him, to pull him down into the old gulfs.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Men are not to be told anything they might find too painful; the secret depths of human nature, the sordid physicalities, might overwhelm or damage them. For instance, men often faint at the sight of their own blood, to which they are not accustomed. For this reason you should never stand behind one in the line at the Red Cross donor clinic.”
—Margaret Atwood (b. 1939)