The Use of Biological Weapons During Combat

People of the Old World had domesticated pigs, horses, sheep, and cattle(1), which had acted as pathogens to infect the Europeans with diseases. In addition, diseases were constantly circulated with centuries of war, exploration, and city building. During the process of natural selection, disease-intolerant

Frist of all, in the Second Battle of Ypres, the Germans introduced the first use of poisonous gas. When poison gas first introduced it was a popular weapon choice and would be the weapon to change the outcome of the war. The Germans surprisingly attack the Allies, where the used lethal chloride gas against them. The gas was deadly and killed over one thousand soldiers. (1) It also allowed a significant advanced for the Germans in the war. The gas usage continued to grow throughout the war. In the end, many Allied countries started chemical weapons research. Gas warfare became common but effective actions were used to protect the troops. After World War 1, poison was use for a while but in today’s war it is no longer allowed. Instead of poisonous gas, chemical warfare is used. Chemical weapons come in a variety of forms and are used for several different techniques.

End of a Paradigm, Samuel K. Cohn Jr. argues that the Black Death of 14th century Europe was not the same illness as the bubonic plague. To help illustrate his argument, Cohn compared the Black Death of 14th century Europe to the agent of the bubonic plague, Yersinia pestis, which was discovered in Hong Kong

Elizabethan medical profession had no idea what caused the plague – the best they could was to

“Based on published translations of the de’ Mussi manuscript, other 14th-century accounts of the Black Death, and secondary scholarly literature, I conclude that the claim that biological warfare was used at Caffa is plausible and provides the best explanation of the entry of plague into the city. This theory is

In 542 CE an illness called, The Great Plague struck Constantinople that was so overpowering, it changed the substance of history perpetually in Eastern Europe. The malady was initially seen in Pelusium, an Egyptian harbor town. The issue with this torment was that nobody was certain of what brought on it. In later years we have discovered that the illness was brought about by microscopic organisms and parasites that utilized rats as hosts. North Africa, in the eighth century CE, was the essential wellspring of grain for the realm, alongside various distinctive wares including paper, oil, ivory, and slaves. Put away in inconceivable distribution centers, the grain gave an impeccable reproducing ground to the bugs and rats, critical to the transmission of torment. These rats would then contaminate our

Domenica. I fed it to my husband and suddenly the fever broke. (Doc 7). A superstition during this time was how the plague was started and how it was spreading, Erasmus Rotterdam wrote a letter that said, The plague and sickness in England is due to the filth in the streets and the sputum and dogs' urine clogging the rushes on the floors of the houses. (Doc 2). This statement was miraculously very true, and it was very uncommon for people of the time to be able to pin-point something like

No one could have predicted nor outsmarted the sickness. The plague, believed to have been brought to Europe on ships from Asia, was a mystery to all. Had there been a higher standard of hygiene, the Black Death may not have affected Europe in such an unstoppable way. In Document 4, Marchionne di Coppo Stefani details the disposal of the dead into deep trenches after doctors failed to treat patients. Stefani explains that physicians would “[check] the pulse with face turned

A lot of methods that were proposed to people were very medieval. For example, doctors would tell sick patients to avoid shower, to bleed out until they lost consciousness, (”I have seen people who prophylactically gave up to 8 pounds of blood; most people gave about 5...” document 13, page 58). With a lot of observation (and that is what many doctors did, only observe, so they would not have contact with the plague), doctors started to notice different types of the disease (as one of the chroniclers stated on Document 6, page 32: “And it is said that the plague is of three different types of infection”), and the symptoms as well (“In January 1349, there appeared new symptoms” document 19, page 84). Many doctors were criticized because of their greed, cowardice and impotence. To make money, doctors would visit patients and prescribe their remedies. However those would not work, proving that their art was false. Some doctors even thought of poisoning coming from the Jews could be the reason of the plague.

It makes since that the rats and fleas communicated the disease from person to person because they weren’t very sanitary during the Middle Ages. There were fleas and rats in each and every persons dwelling but they were particularly prevalent on ships of all kinds, which caused the disease to spread throughout the entire

These are just a few examples of many accounts of the use of chemical and biological agents in war.

It can also be used to harm animals and agricultural crops in order to cause financial damage and/ or famine. “Bioterrorism aims to create casualties, terror, societal disruption, or economic loss, inspired by ideological, religious or political beliefs” (Jansen, Breeveld, Stijnis, & Grobusch, 2014, pg. 490). The disease agents that are used in bioterrorism can be naturally occurring or man-made. When the agents are man-made, they can be mutated or altered to increase their ability to cause disease, to spread more readily, or to make the agents resistant to medicine. The agents can be released in the air, in water supplies, or in food supplies. A benefit for terrorists in using biological agents is that it can be difficult to detect that a biological attack has occurred, and that many disease agents may not cause illness immediately; it may take hours or days for symptoms to appear which helps in the spread of the disease. Another benefit to the use of biological agents is that they are easy and inexpensive to obtain, they can be easily disseminated, and they cause widespread fear as well as physical

A native of Brooklyn, New York, Jeanne Harley Guillemin was born in 1943. As well as being an author and medical anthropologist, for 25 she was a Professor of Sociology at Boston College. There, she participated in extensive research on medical ethics and hospital technology. For her works she received fellowships to become a member of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee at the Hastings Center for The Study of Ethics. In addition, she was co-head of the National Library of Medicine’s Health Aware Project. This was a partner project with Harvard Medical School which tested how the uses of the internet could include proving education on preventive health measures to the public.

While others, were only effected by direct contact. It was thought to have been sustainable by even touching clothing or other such items of the infected. Conditions of the fourteenth century were also a contributing factor. Famine had been an arising issue due to the number of overpopulation. Because of this, their immune systems began to weaken. “Europeans were susceptible to disease because many people lived in crowded surroundings in an era when personal hygiene was not considered important” (Dowling). The cities were unsanitary and littered with germs, making it easier to sustain such diseases. Unhealthy habits were conducted and medical advances had not yet been made. Doctors themselves had not known what to advise. No prescriptions had worked. There was no cure to what was happening. Most were not even aware of what was impending upon them. Anything that could would be tried, in hopes of living. People were becoming desperate.

As I am packing my bag yet one more time, I have discovered that I have a rhythm. I pull out my suit case with a few groans, decide if I really want to leave, and pack my clothes. I have study some about the medieval world, and have made a decision that I want to visit the time period of the Bubonic Plague. As a coroner, I am interested on the diseases that have been spread, and how they got cured. In addition, I have heard that there were some KILLER food during the time of Ancient