Biological Weapons from the Ancient World to 1945

This chapter aims to provide a survey of the history of biological warfare before 1945. The scope of this chapter then is expansive in two key senses. Firstly, it covers a vast period of human history - with the earliest time periods marked out in millennia and centuries. Secondly, while more recent history is organised into narrower periods, it covers the growth of numerous modern programmes during the twentieth century. The use of poisons, toxins and infectious diseases in warfare, certainly predates our modern scientific understandings of the chemical and biological mechanisms through which these agents exhibit effects. The military programmes which emerged in the first half of the twentieth century, and since, also continue to inform our contemporary understanding of biological and chemical warfare.