Biography of an Inventor: Dr. Karl Connell

If you were blindfolded and facing a firing squad with ten rifles leveled at you, and you heard the count reach five on the way to ten, what would be your last thought?

On April 6, 1917, the United States of America declared war on Germany. General John J. Pershing was appointed commander of the American Expeditionary Force. He arrived in Paris on June 14 to plan the creation of an army capable of defeating a formidable adversary. To do so he became thoroughly familiar with the hazards of gas warfare. He learned the Germans had recently used a new gas, called Mustard Gas, with devastating effect. To better cope with this new weapon, on September 3 he ordered the creation of the Gas Service and appointed a member of his staff, Lt. Colonel Amos E. Fries, its chief. He asked the noted neurosurgeon, Dr. Harvey Cushing, to help him find any doctors who could help protect American troops from poisonous gases. Dr. Cushing could recommend only one, Dr. Karl Albert Connell. General Pershing immediately sent a personal cablegram for Dr. Connell to which he promptly responded.

This is his story divided into two parts. Part One, Biography of an Inventor, covers the period from 1878 to 1925 and is based on documented historical records. Part Two, Adventures with Dad, is a memoir as told by his son Karl Connell, Jr. after consulting his sisters, Barbara Connell Mooney and Gioia Connell Brock.

Karl Connell, Jr. was born in an elevator in New York City. He was educated in a one room school house in the Catskill Mountains. He also attended the Millbrook School, Yale, and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and Columbia Law School. As a lawyer he prepared registration statements for several score securities offerings, each of which contained a Prospectus making full disclosure as in the Critical Acclaim and Disdain on the front flap of the book. (He has not been sued, perhaps because he wrote anonymously.) He has also used the pen name Wintoon Waters in writing Julius Caesar and Posted for the Bulletin of the Anglers' Club of New York. Further, he is a principal author of Financing a Theatrical Production and an article on Rights and Remedies of Florida Shareholders, published by Bar Associations, some of which no longer exist. For the American Stock Exchange he edited and compiled The American Stock Exchange Company Guide, Floor Transactions Handbook and Types of Orders Defined and Explained. He formerly served as a chairman of the Watershed Forest Task Force and founded The Neversink Association, Inc. in the Catskill Mountains, his summer home.