Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
the Austrian fortress at Mantua, Italy, Napoleon
ordered the surrounding land area to be flooded,
in an attempt to infect the inhabitants with malaria
(then known as “swamp fever”) [13].
During the Civil War, Dr. Luke Blackburn, who
later became the governor of Kentucky, attempted
to infect clothing with smallpox and yellow fever
and then sell it to unsuspecting Union troops.
His success is unknown, but at least one Union
officer's obituary stated that he died of smallpox
that could be ascribed to Blackburn's scheme.
Although smallpox can be transmitted through
contact with fomites, it was not known at the
time that yellow fever could only be transmitted to
humans from mosquitoes [14].
Army General Order No. 100 stated that “The use
of poison in any manner, be it to poison wells,
or food, or arms, is wholly excluded from modern
warfare” [14].
2.5 Biological Contamination of Food
Purposeful poisoning of food supplies has also
long been a tactic of warfare. Wine poisoned
with mandrake (
Podophyllum peltatum
) root was
used by Julius Caesar to poison Cilician pirates
to affect his rescue after they had captured him
in about 75 BC. In about 65 BC, Pompey's army
approaching Colchis fell victim to toxic honey left
for their demise along the rout of attack by the
Heptakometes. About 1000 of Pompey's men were
slaughtered after they collapsed with vomiting and
diarrhea from this toxic meal [2]. How likely is
the creation of a toxic honey? If the bees in a hive
collected nectar from plants that contained alka-
loids toxic to humans, such as ragwort, azaleas,
and rhododendrons, poison honey could result.
And, in 1485 near Naples, the Spanish supplied
their French enemies with wine laced with leprosy
patients' blood, hoping to transmit this disease to
their enemies [2].
In 946 AD, Olga of Kiev provided poisoned
mead (honey wine) to his Russian opponents [2].
It appears that rulers of Russia did not forget
the lesson they learned from this event. Over
500 years later, the Russian army slaughtered
about 10,000 Tartar soldiers after they had drunk
similarly tainted mead in 1489 [2]. It is worth
noting that food and water safety threat micro-
organisms are today considered to be Category
B pathogens (second highest priority agents) by
the US Centers for Disease Control and Protec-
tion (CDC).
2.4 Biological Contamination of Water
Supplies
The purposeful poisoning of wells and water
supplies was a tactic often used during battles.
In 590 BC, Solon of Athens used hellebore to
poison the water source from the Pleistrus River
to the city of Kirrha in Greece. Records indicate
that the inhabitants of Kirrha became “violently
sick to their stomachs and all lay unable to move.
They took the city without opposition.” In 350 BC,
Aeneas the Tactician wrote in a manual for military
commanders the recommendation to “make water
undrinkable” by polluting rivers, lakes, springs,
wells, and cisterns. In 1155, at the battle of
Tortona, Italy, Barbarossa put human corpses in his
enemy's water supply, successfully contaminating
it. During the eighteenth century, the Iroquois
Indians used animal skins to cause illness in the
water supply of over 1000 French soldiers in the
Americas [2].
In 1861, Union troops advancing south into
Maryland and other border states were warned not
to eat or drink anything provided by unknown
civilians for fear of being poisoned. Despite the
warnings, numerous soldiers thought they had
been poisoned after eating or drinking. Confed-
erate General Albert Johnston, retreating through
Mississippi in 1863, tried to poison water supplies
by dumping dead animals into the wells and bodies
of water that they passed [15]. The same year, U.S.
2.6 Toxin Weapons
Bees, hornets, and other stinging insects have long
been used as weapons. Beehive and hornet nest
bombs were among the earliest projectile weapons,
and venomous insects are thought to be “important
military agents in tactics of ambush.” Catapulting
beehives at enemy troops was a favorite tactic
