How do you spell "holiday"? ..... S-H-I-T.

It is certain that ancient man used biological (germ) warfare long before recorded history. The use of biological toxins extracted from plants and animals on arrow heads or poison darts to kill game and human enemies certainly predates recorded history. This technology is still used by some South American Indians and Africans to slay game and to down a human enemy or two. It was standard operating procedure to dip arrows in fecal material or decaying meat before attacking an enemy as the role of infection in debilitating an opponent was well understood.

Fecal matter usually harbors the gas gangrene bacterium, Clostridium perfringens, and often the tetanus bacillus, Clostridium tetani.F .

The poisoning of an enemies’ water supply by dumping dead bodies or fecal material into wells and other confined water sources is an ancient war strategy; still in use today. In these cases a variety of fecal pathogens could be counted on to take a large toll of an adversary using that water supply.

The Japanese in the Second World War have admitted to using germ warfare on the Chinese and to experimenting on POWs, but its effectiveness has been impossible to discern. Forms of "indirect biological warfare" have been employed throughout history. In the Middle Ages sieges depended upon starvation and disease to force the inhabitants to surrender. The Nazis forced the Jews in the concentration camps to live under conditions that they knew would lead to the outbreak and spread of virulent diseases among a cold, starving and stressed population.

Both sides in the first and second World Wars recognized that the indiscriminate bombing of large civilian populations would have the consequence of inducing disease outbreaks among the weakened and injured survivors. Embargoes that prevent food and medicine from reaching civilian populations can also could be considered to fit in this category.

The Allies, at the end of W.W. II, were concerned that diseases within the civilian population of Europe could spread to their troops as they occupied the conquered regions, so one of the first actions taken in the liberated territories was to stop epidemics and establish sanitary conditions.