Yellow Cross (Gelbkreuz) is a World War I chemical warfare agent usually based on sulfur mustard (HS, Yperite, Lost).
The original Gelbkreuz was a composition of 80-90% of sulfur mustard and 10-20% of tetrachloromethane or chlorobenzene as a solvent which lowered its viscosity and acted as an antifreeze, or, alternatively, 80% sulfur mustard, 10% bis(chloromethyl) ether, and 10% tetrachloromethane. A later formulation, Gelbkreuz 1, was a mixture of 40% ethyldichloroarsine, 40% ethyldibromoarsine, and 20% of bis(chloromethyl) ether. In some cases nitrobenzene was used to mask the material's characteristic odor. French "ypérite no.20" was a similar mixture of 80% sulfur mustard and 20% tetrachloromethane.
Yellow Cross is also a generic World War I German marking for artillery shells with chemical payload affecting exposed surfaces of the body.
Famous quotes containing the words yellow and/or cross:
““Never shall a young man,
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-coloured
Ramparts at your ear,
Love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.””
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“We are no longer in a state of growth; we are in a state of excess. We are living in a society of excrescence.... The boil is growing out of control, recklessly at cross purposes with itself, its impacts multiplying as the causes disintegrate.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)