Biological Weapons In History essays

Biological Weapons In History essays If used in numbers, atomic bombs not only can nullify any nation's military effort, but can demolish its social and economic structure and prevent their re-establishment for long periods of time. With such weapons, especially if employed in conjunction with other weapons of mass destruction such as pathogenic bacteria, it is quite possible to depopulate vast areas of the earth's surface, leaving only vestigial remnants of man's material works. -Report of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Operation Crossroads, June 30, 1947 Biological weapons have a long history in warfare. The first accounts of biological warfare date to the 6th century B.C. when the Assyrians poisoned the wells of their enemies with rye ergot (a disease of rye and other cereals caused by ergot fungus, similar in effect to LSD) and again when Solon of Athens poisoned an aqueduct with hellebore, (an herb purgative) during the siege of Kirrha. During a naval battle in 184 B.C. against King Eumenes of Pergamon, Hannibals forces hurled clay pots filled with venomous snakes onto the enemys decks. Hannibal defeated the Pergamene, as they were forced to fight man and snake. Can biological weapons used throughout history be classified as weapons of mass destruction such as modern day nuclear, biological or chemical weapons? In modern times we know nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons as weapons of mass destruction, but can we say that biological attacks that occurred as early as the 6th century B.C. were intended to produce the mass casualties that we now know bacterial, virulent and toxic weapons are capable of producing? Can these battles over 2,500 years ago be considered the first in the long history of the biological weapons age? It is understood today that nuclear, biological and chemical weapons are meant to decimate an enemy forces ability to fight by killing, seriously injuring, or incapacitating the enemy through its physiologica...