From hurling beehives to maggot bombs, death comes in small packages. (From the archive)
Little inspires human ingenuity, or overcomes moral scruples, like the desire for improved means of smiting one’s enemies. From sharper swords to bigger bombs, soldiers have always sought an edge. And long before either swords or explosives existed, scholars believe, Paleolithic warriors were hurling “bee bombs”—nests of stinging insects—into enemy caves.
Before the 20th century, however, insect conscripts never caused a fraction of the mortality that freelance bugs did. In the American Civil War, in which some 620,000 soldiers died, two-thirds were felled by disease, most of it spread by insects. After scientists established the insect-disease role in epidemics, everything changed. The Japanese were the first to grasp the military implications.
Then Ishii had his conceptual breakthrough: insects, he realized, not only delivered diseases, they protected them en route. So Ishii devised a Dante-esque perpetual plague machine. A four-storey granary was built to attract, feed and house a rat colony. Rats were captured, infected with plague, and held immobile. Fleas were dumped from test tubes onto the rats’ shaved stomachs.
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