ZKEA
World Outbreak Update
Ancient HistoryMankind has never found a weapon he didn't like and eventually use. Whether a weapon was conventional, chemical or biological, people have happily applied them all. This has been true since ancient times, as these references show.For example, it is widely-known that the Black Death wiped out over a third of the population of Europe. However, far less widely-known is the probable fact that these epidemics were ignited by an act of biological warfare. This took place in Caffa in 1345 (now Feodosija, Ukraine), which at that time was a port for Genoese merchant ships. A Muslim Tartar army was besieging the Christian city when a terrible plague (bubonic plague) began to decimate their ranks. Although badly demoralized by the disease, the Tartars nonetheless had an inspiration: they began to catapult their dead into the city in the hopes of spreading the plague to the defenders. The strategy was successful. Plague spread in Caffa and the city fell. The surviving Christian defenders retreated to various ports in Europe, taking the seeds of the plague with them. Thus began the Black Death. Biological warfare far predates the Tartars, however. The ancient Scythians perfected the biological-tipped arrow. This consisted of a mixture of decomposed snakes, dung and human blood, that had been buried and putrefied. The resulting substance was then coated on the tips of their arrows. Thus it didn't really matter if a Scythian arrow killed you outright or not, for even a minor wound was sure to develop a lethal mix of gangrene and tetanus. Despite not knowing the germ origin of disease, ancient warriors were sufficiently astute to notice that disease correlated with dead and decaying bodies. Thus, another common tactic was for ancient armies to pollute enemy water sources with dead animals. There is a common conceit that "modern" man has risen above such things. In fact, there has been no change to our underlying mentality. We are the same people we were thousands of years ago. The only difference is that our technology is far more powerful, and therefore far more capable of causing our extinction.
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| Recommended Books |
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The Complete Guide To Biological Weapons
by U.S. Department of Defense |
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The Coming Plague
by Laurie Garret |
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The Demon In The Freezer
by Richard Preston |
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The Collapse Of Public Health
by Laurie Garret |
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The Menace of Emerging Infections
by Madeline Drexler |
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The Hot Zone
by Richard Preston |
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BioHazard
by Ken Alibek |
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Plague Wars
by Tom Mangold |
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The Biology of Doom
by Ed Regis |
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Living Terrors: Survive The Bioterrorist Catastrophe
by Michael Osterholm |
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Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox
by Jonathan Tucker |
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Virus X: Tracking The New Killer Plagues
by Frank Ryan |
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Virus Hunter
by C.J. Peters |
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Ebola: Through The Eyes of The People
by William Close |
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The Cobra Event
by Richard Preston |
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Germs: America's Secret War
by Judith Miller |
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Man & Microbes: Plagues Throughout History
by Arno Karlen |