Pros And Cons Of Bioterrorism

Boston Smallpox Epidemic of 1721: When smallpox broke out in Boston, Cotton Mather introduced an untested medical procedure called “inoculation”, which would introduce a small amount of the virus to a patient, in hoping they would become immune to it. Many were opposed to it, even though it worked. Many people died due to the epidemic. 31. Common Sense: Thomas Paine wrote a book called "Common Sense", it sold more than 150,000 copies when the population was only 3 million.

The CDC has determined “smallpox is an acute, contagious, and sometimes fatal disease caused by variola virus” (question and answers about smallpox disease). Smallpox has been around for thousands of years. The cause of Smallpox is Variola. Since Smallpox is from Variola it is from Orthopoxvirus. The last outbreak has not occurred recently.

In some areas contact with smallpox wiped out nine-tenths of the Indians population. Smallpox was brought over by animals when they were transported overseas. It is communicated through the air by means of droplets or dust particles and enters the body through the respiratory tract. Europeans were not as susceptible to smallpox because they had built up much stronger immune systems from being around epidemic pathogens for a long time. They viewed smallpox as an illness almost every child gets while growing up.

Writers from the History webpage claim, “Famous early American Cotton Mather described it as ‘turning yellow then vomiting and bleeding every way.” The only way individuals during the Antebellum era knew that people had been infected was by their symptom, and based upon the symptoms they would experiment until they found a cure. Lastly, Smallpox during the 1990’s was used as a defense mechanism in the

Not all civilizations had the same domesticated animals and some didn't have any at all, so they never became immune to smallpox.

Smallpox, or Variola major, is a deadly viral disease . The virus is shaped like brick covered in small spikes, and has been infecting humans for thousands of years. Smallpox even affected the course of the Revolutionary War. The disease had been killing many of George Washington’s men, and only when he had them protected from smallpox, could the Americans keep fighting for freedom. Smallpox has a very riveting history.

Smallpox continued to be a problem throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, affecting populations on a large scale.” It was one of the primary annihilator’s of the native indigenous population of the Americas during the first arrivals of the Europeans who brought it with them. One notable incident which many believe led to a severe outbreak of the smallpox amongst various Indian tribes in the Ohio Valley in 1763 was the case of the British Army giving away blankets from a pox hospital with the hopes of passing the disease onto the Indians they were fighting. Gill (2004) shares purported correspondence between two British officers with the following:

There are numerous evidences present in the literature to support the usefulness of vaccination for the treatment of viral infections such as Polio, Measles, Mumps, Rubella and Small Pox (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2013). A person is given a shot once for these diseases and seldom need another shot. Health agencies are now able to make statement such as the eradication of Small Pox, Polio and Measles (College of Phycisian of Philadelphia, 2015). The efforts toward polio and measles eradication in the Americas have been possible only mainly because there was a very high level of political commitment and collaboration among governments of the region (Knobler, Lederberg, & Pray, 2002).

Before that, people used variolation to prevent getting a more serious version of smallpox. Variolation is when the patient is inoculated with live smallpox. But in a lot of cases around the world, the plan backfired, leading the individual to contract a full-blown case of the

If it has a multiplier of something between five and twenty, it will likely spread explosively, because five or fifteen or twenty multiplied by itself every two weeks or so can get the world to millions of smallpox cases in a few months, absent effective control. The outbreak grows not in a straight line but in an exponential rise, expanding at a faster and faster rate.” (Preston 47 & 48) After reading this you’d be quite surprised that if this were to happen, it would be excruciating and hard to get rid of. Based on these calculations it leaves ideas that if bioterrorism were to ever be used, we would have to put up a strong combat against it. Given this hypothetical reasoning, it serves towards Preston’s purpose that makes us all think about how devastating the circumstances of

Chemical warfare is different from the use of conventional weapons or nuclear weapons because the destructive effects of chemical weapons are not primarily due to any explosive force. (Wikipedia the free encyclopedia) It has been known that the use of chemical warfare dates back to Ancient times. Ancient Greek myths about Hercules poisoning his arrows with the venom of the “Hydra monster” are the earliest references to toxic weapons in Western literature.

Chemical warfare is the use of harmful chemicals as a weapon, these chemicals can be asphyxiating, poisonous, corrosive, flammable, etc..Chemical warfare was first used during World War One on April 22, 1915 in Ypres, Belgium by German forces. The Germans dropped over 150 tons of chlorine gas, also called bertholite,with the use of artillery bombardment against French Colonial Divisions in Ypres (Second). This first use of chemical warfare proved to be very effective by causing mass panic in the French Colonial Divisions and forced soldiers to retreat and regroup back in Ypres. Following this attack, the British and French began to create and develope their own chemical weapons in response to Germany. At the end of the first World War over 124,000 tonnes of various chemical weapons had been used resulting in more than one million casualties and 90,000 fatalities (History).

Once the child recovered from the cowpox disease, Jenner then tried to infect the child with smallpox, but the young man proved to be immune. “It seemed that this attempt at vaccination had worked. But Jenner had to work on for two more years before his discovery was considered sufficiently tested by the medical profession to permit widespread introduction.” (Alexander, 2003). Beginning in 1831 and ending in 1835, due to increasing vaccination, smallpox deaths were down to one in a thousand.

Smallpox outbreaks have occurred from time to time for thousands of years, but the disease is now eradicated after a successful worldwide vaccination program. The last naturally occurring case in the world was in Somalia in 1977. After the disease was eliminated from the world, routine vaccination against smallpox among the general public was stopped because it was no longer necessary for prevention. In 1970, when smallpox was nearly eradicated, a previously unrecognized orthopoxvirus named monkey pox was identified in humans.

Biological weapons The first type of Weapons of Mass Destruction to speak about will be the: Biological weapons. But at first what are Biological weapons? The Biological weapons: Is a virus, bacterium, fungus or parasite that can be used purposely to spread a disease.