De angst voor het gebruik van gifgassen zat er goed in.
Because of people’s clear memory of the use of poison gas during World War I, there was a great fear that chemical warfare would be used during World War II even though its use had been banned in a treaty signed in 1925. The British government distributed gas masks for use by civilians during enemy attacks. There were even special gas masks for babies and toddlers, like the showed here. It was designed to cover not just the child’s head, but its whole body down to the waist. The arms were inside, so that the child could suck its thumb. The mirror was for the mother to check the child’s breathing: when it breathed out, the glass misted over.