35 Bonus Episode: 'Back to Source ' with Seth Carus

Poisons and Pestilence

In this bonus episode I am joined by Seth Carus, as we explore some of the earliest allegations of biological warfare- as well as the more recent modern developments, which transformed ancient fears, into Cold War era weapon systems.

Do check out these two studies, I think they are great:

Carus, W. Seth. "The history of biological weapons use: what we know and what we don't." Health security 13.4 (2015): 219-255.

Carus, W. Seth. "A century of biological-weapons programs (1915–2015): reviewing the evidence." The Nonproliferation Review 24.1-2 (2017): 129-153.

And also thanks to Adrienne Mayor, who drew my attention to this work on the Caffa siege, and recent work on the spread of the Black Death in the 14th century more broadly.

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/711596

https://hcommons.org/deposits/objects/hc:50220/datastreams/CONTENT/content

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(20)30176-2/fulltext

N.B my remarks on the ability of scientists to produce anthrax spores for the German programme in WW1 reliably has sparked some discussion. And I will return to this. Essentially, it is not currently clear if either purified / extracted/dried spores were employed- or else some form of wet suspension. The latter, which would have likely contained a mix of (likely denatured) vegetative b. anthracis and spores. Or else some form of purified spore suspension. I know right?