On 1/10/07, P. J. Alling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > This is well, just wrong. The methods of how diseases were transmitted > just wasn't well enough understood to run a campaign using such a > weapon. You didn't need to do it on purpose, it seems that moderns have > forgotten just virulent smallpox is and what it does to un-protected > populations. Now killing the buffalo, that was well understood.
Just because they didn't have the same knowledge that we do about disease transmission doesn't mean that it wouldn't have been well known that certain diseases were communicable. I'm sure that it wouldn't have been difficult to notice that those in contact with someone with smallpox seem to have a much higher chance of contracting it themselves. They may not have been sophisticated, but they weren't stupid. cheers, frank -- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
