Things Everyone Should Know-Chemical and Biological Weapons essays

Things Everyone Should Know-Chemical and Biological Weapons essays In every life time one will experience the effect of a weapon, whether it is that of a car, knife, gun or even the horrors of a bomb or the possible threat of chemical and/or biological agents. No matter what the source of destruction, it causes the downfall of some type. Some believe that a car accident or a gun is more dangerous and destructive to life, however that common person does not understand the unfamiliar hazards and irreversible effects that these viruses and bacterium can cause. Currently the United States has been struggling with the thought of anthrax and other weapons of biological threat infecting their loved ones and our nations world status. Chemical and biological weapons developed by the United States scientists have not only protected the United States against a massive chemical and/or biological attack, but have also cost the United States millions of dollars and thousands of lives in the production and the investigation of chemical and biological weapons. The use of chemical and biological weapons date far back in the history books, even before writing was around. At least 3,000 years ago, chemicals were added to fires to create fumes that would choke and sicken the enemy. Greek fire was a chemical weapon, perhaps invented in A.D. 660 by a Greek engineer named Callinicus (Pringle, pg 14). The Greek fire caused the Arab and Russian enemies to weaken on the port city Constantinople producing a Greek victory. The term biological warfare is a more recent development in the weapons of mass destruction era. Only until the nineteenth century did scientist prove that germs cause infectious disease. (The term germs includes bacteria, viruses, and rickettsia.) In the 19th century, citizens only knew that disease spread through a sick person, a human corpse or an animal carcass. An easy way to poison an enemys population was to simply p...