'Samples' of poisonous gases

Bottles of 'harmless artifical odours' which resembled the smells of poisonous gases used during World War 2.

These samples were probably used for instruction for Defence Society members. The Defence Society in Adelaide was founded in February 1933 by schoolteacher and union activist Natalia Davies. By the commencement of World War II, the Society with Davies as President had a membership of 130, mainly women. 

'From 1940 ... evening classes on first aid, home nursing, motor engineering, elementary electrical work and fire drill [were held]. ... the society taught hundreds of women to shoot and maintain a rifle. In 1942, after Japan entered the war, classes extended to pistol shooting, map-reading and unarmed defence. Each night members went on duty at a roof-watching post in the city'.[Australian Dictionary of Biography Online: Davies, Natalia (Nat) (1907 - 1951)]

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