CHINESE WORLD WAR II GAS ATTACK AND RELATED FIRST AID POSTERS
Incredibly graphic set of five emergency first aid posters edited by the Zhixing Club and issued by the Xinya Book Store in Shanghai, undated but apparently ca. late 1930s. Three of the 21" x 31" color posters depict a wide variety of bandaging techniques, splints, stretchers, emergency medical kits, etc. The remaining two posters show the effects of poison gas on an unprepared populace. Images include people vomiting and clearly dying in the streets as biplanes which had dropped the gas circle overhead, skin lesions and burns caused by exposure, evacuation, a field hospital, and decontamination. These very rare posters show edge wear and soiling consistent with age, a few have minor old repairs on verso, but all remain overall very good. Shanghai was the scene of poison gas attacks by the Japanese in October, 1937 - one of only a very few such attacks occurring during the war. From a single collection obtained entirely in China pre-2000.