Cluny MacPherson
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Cluny Macpherson, MD (1879 in St. John's, Newfoundland - 1966) was a medical doctor and the inventor of the gas mask.
During the First World War the German army used poison gas for the first time, against Allied troops at Ypres, France in 1915. A soldier's only protection was to breath through a handkerchief or other small piece of fabric soaked in urine.
Out of necessity, Doctor Cluny Macpherson, from St. John's, Newfoundland, quickly came up with the idea of a gas mask made of fabric and metal. Using a helmet taken from a captured German prisoner, he added a canvas hood with eyepieces and a breathing tube. The helmet was treated with chemicals that would absorb the chlorine used in the gas attacks. He had invented the world's first gas mask. After a few improvements, Cluny Macpherson's helmet became the first gas mask to be used by the British army.
This Canadian's invention was the most important protective device of the First World War, protecting countless soldiers from blindness, disfigurement or injury to their throats and lungs. Gas masks are worn by millions of soldiers around the world today.
Macpherson received his medical education from Methodist College and McGill University. MacPherson started the first St. John's Ambulance Brigade after working with the St. John's Ambulance Association.
Macpherson served as the principal medical officer for the St. John's Ambulance Brigade of the first Newfoundland Regiment during World War I. MacPherson began researching methods of protection against the poison gas and invented the MacPherson respirator (gas mask) in 1915, which was the first general issue gas countermeasure to be used by the British Army.
After suffering a war injury, Macpherson returned to Newfoundland to serve as the director of the military medical service and later served as the president of the St. John's Clinical Society and the Newfoundland Medical Association. Macpherson was awarded many honors for his contributions to medical science.
