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The first use of biological weapons dates to the twelfth century, when the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa used human corpses to poison water wells in Tortona, Italy. In the fourteenth century, Mongols decimated their enemies by spreading plague to their cities, catapulting diseased corpses over their cities’ walls. The tactic of spreading diseases against enemies was also used in the Seven Years’ War of the 1760s, in which British troops gave hostile Native American tribes blankets that had been used to wrap smallpox patients; a similar strategy was used by Confederate troops against their Union rivals in the Civil War. Uses of biological warfare during and between the World Wars included the sale of anthrax-infested livestock to enemy forces and the poisoning of food and water supplies with sewage and disease-infested crops.

Biological weapons spread toxins and microorganisms, such as viruses and bacteria, in order to inflict disease among people, animals, and agriculture. Biological attacks cannot only directly disable and kill but can also destroy crops, which may temporarily debilitate an entire community. The way that a biological weapon is used depends on several factors that can include the type of agent used, how the agent is prepared, how durable the agent is in the given environment, and the manner in which the agent infects the victims. Like chemical agents, some biological agents can be dispersed in aerosol form which can be inhaled or can

Anthrax microbes.

BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS COMPARISON TO WMDS

Biological Weapons

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